The Class of 2251-Generation 1
by Sheronnale
Summary: The war wasn't about information, not entirely. The problems started long before that, back when the heroes and villains of Divergent were just children. Starring Andrew, Evelyn, Jeanine, Johanna, Marcus, Natalie, and Tori, this is the story of Generation 1.
1. The Yearbook (Prologue)

** Author's Note: After finishing **_**Insurgent**_**, I noticed something interesting: Andrew, Evelyn, Jeanine, and Tori all came from the same faction and were all in the same class! (Evelyn says she, Andrew, and Jeanine were classmates, and Jeanine mentions that Tori was in her class right before she dies.) This led me to speculate whether something happened between all these grown-ups when they were young. I have no idea why Tris is "Generation 2" in **_**Insurgent**_**, but that makes her parents and their peers Generation 1, hence the title. This story will be mainly centered on Tris's father, Andrew, with snatches of the others' lives at different points in time. **

**By the way, I finished this before _Allegiant_ came out in my area, so some details might not fit with the third book.**

To help you keep the names straight, here are the seven families (bolded names are canon):

Carr Family: Leon + Iris — **Andrew**, Perrier

**Johnson** Family: Viktor + Crystal — **Evelyn**

**Matthews** Family: Kyle + Nora — **Jeanine**, Dave, Candice, Amy, (Abel)

**Reyes** Family: Graham + Suzanna — Frederick, **Johanna**, Yvonne

**Eaton** Family: Dexter + Zoe — Richard, **Marcus **

**Prior** Family: Ottis + Ruth — **Natalie**

**Wu **Family: ? + Naomi — **Tori, George**

* * *

_**October 17, 2282, one year after **_**Insurgent**

_**Tris**_

The afternoon light filtered into the dull gray room, highlighting the dust motes that danced in the air. Tris coughed, picking her way past splintering floorboards to the stairs.

"Wow, we're gone for a year and dust takes over everything," remarked Tobias as he followed her upstairs, glancing nervously over his shoulder. "You sure your father would've hidden any secret files here? The Abnegation don't allow possessions."

"He was born Erudite, remember?" Tris replied, opening the door to her father's old room. Seeing his furniture and the clothes that still hung in his closet brought memories flooding back to her mind. She could almost hear his voice in her head… Tris shut her eyes and pushed the depressing thoughts away. She needed to focus. _The factionless army might be here at any second._ "Check all the floorboards, cupboards, and nooks and crannies for any documents you can find," Tris instructed Tobias, bending down to lift the mattress off the bed. Tobias nodded and obediently began to search.

There was nothing beneath the bed but a few squashed bugs. A grueling search through the drawers of the desk and the cupboards revealed nothing interesting, either. _Hmm, maybe Tobias was right. _Tris had just about given up hope when she found what appeared to be a book wedged between the dresser and the wall. "Hey, I found something!"

"Really?" Tobias crossed the cramped room in one stride and helped her shove the dresser forward. The unpolished wood made a rough scratching sound against the similarly-made floor. Tris stretched her arm into the crack and pulled out the hidden object.

"It's a yearbook," said Tobias after a moment. "From thirty years ago."

Tris looked down at the gold-emblazoned words on the black leather-bound tome in her hands. Sure enough, it was labeled, "Yearbook, 2250-2251." "That's about the time my parents chose their factions!" she cried, opening the book eagerly.

Tobias frowned. "Tris, we came here for information, not to look at photos of your parents."

Tris rolled her eyes, flipping quickly through the pages. "Oh, come on, just give me a sec." Under "Upper Levels, Graduating Class—Erudite," one face caught her eye. He had the same dark, wavy hair and hooked nose she had always known, just minus a few wrinkles. But the last name… "Andrew _Carr?_"

"That your dad?" asked Tobias, peering over Tris's shoulder. She nodded slowly. "Well, one thing's for sure, Edith Prior's an ancestor of your mom's, then."

Tris frowned. "My parents never told me Prior was Mom's last name…" She felt her breath catch in her throat as she caught sight of a blond girl with sharp gray eyes and thick spectacles a few rows down. "_Jeanine Matthews?!_"

"My mom told you they were classmates," Tobias reminded her. Tris nodded numbly, unable to imagine how that evil woman could ever have been a child, much less sat in the same classroom as her father. Even at 16, Jeanine had that same self-satisfied smirk.

"There she is!" cried Tobias suddenly, pointing to another picture. "Evelyn Johnson!" Tris squinted. Unlike the other two, Tobias's mother had changed considerably since her teenage years. In the portrait, her curly black hair was smooth and shiny, her eyes innocent and light, and her jaw not yet square and imposing. It was almost impossible to reconcile the shy-looking girl with the woman now leading a rampage in the city. "Hey, look! There's Tori Wu!"

Tris tore her eyes away from Evelyn's and down to that of a young woman with spiky black hair and small, angular eyes. "This is getting ridiculous. How could these four possibly have all been in the same class?"

Tobias was silent for a moment. "It makes perfect sense, actually…flip to the Dauntless and Abnegation pages. See if you can find your mother and my father."

Tris turned quickly to the relevant pages. Sure enough, "Natalie Prior" and "Marcus Eaton" were listed under their respective factions. On the Candor page, she found "Johanna Reyes" as well.

"They must've known the others, too, if they were all in the same year at school," muttered Tris slowly. "But then…"

"Something happened between them," said Tobias darkly. "This can't be a coincidence. Don't you find it strange that five out of those seven people ended up changing factions? How Andrew, Marcus, and Johanna became such good friends? Not to mention why Jeanine and my mother hate everyone?"

Tris nodded. "Yes, I think something's definitely fishy here. It could help us with the war, if we could figure out what happened."

"Let's start digging around then."

* * *

**And now it's…Sheronnale Trivia Time! **

We are three people sharing one account. Can you tell who the author of this story is? Winners get a cookie!

#1- I am Amity. I love how everyone is always friendly there. If only the world could work like that…

#2- I am Dauntless. THE PIT IS **AWESOME**.

#3- I am Erudite. After reading the series, though, I'm not sure I want to be associated with them.

**Read & review! Even if you are reading this in the distant future, your efforts will not be wasted. I check on all of my stories at least once a year and respond to any new comments.**


	2. How It All Began: 2242, Age 7-8

**Trivia Answer: **Only two of you submitted guesses, so I'll leave this open and see if anybody else takes a shot at it. This chapter might make it easier to tell which faction I'm from. (See the bottom of Chapter 1 if you have no idea what I'm talking about.)

**A/N: Sorry for taking so long! I kept discovering that some of the details of my story were inconsistent with the books, so I had to go back and revise! T****he next few chapters will be told from the POV's of the seven Generation 1's as kids, and the plot will eventually reconnect back to Tris and Tobias. If you left reviews for the previous chapter, I have responded in the review section.**

* * *

**YEAR 2242: AGES 7-8 **

_**March 20 **_

_**Andrew **_

"Andrew! Perrier!"

The two brothers looked up from their respective spots in the living room, wondering why their parents were calling them. _They hardly notice us at all,_ thought Andrew, the older of the two boys. Getting up from the computer, on which he was programming games, he asked, "Yes, Mom?"

Iris Carr barely glanced at her sons as she shuffled through the living room with a huge stack of papers. "The Matthews will be coming over today, so put away your stuff."

Andrew groaned. "_Again?_ What for?!"

Iris hesitated. "We'll be holding a party because…um…our joint research project has been extremely successful."

The young boy peered past his mother at the kitchen table with a skeptical expression on his face. "If you're really throwing a party, then why do you have all those documents and computers spread everywhere? Shouldn't you be getting food and stuff?"

His mother was at a loss. "Well…"

Just then, Mr. Carr bustled into the room, carrying rolls of what looked like maps of the city. "My, my, aren't you an inquisitive little child," he remarked coldly. "The point is, you children need to play upstairs, because this is a grown-up's gathering, understood?"

Perrier's eyes lit up. "_Is Amy coming?_"

Andrew felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. "Wait, you mean they're bringing their kids? _All of them?!_" The Matthews had three children, all younger than him, whom he had been forced to play with on several occasions. Andrew was sure there was something seriously wrong with each of them. Dave seemed to have an insatiable desire to destroy things, Candice made rude remarks about everyone and everything, and the toddler, Amy, apparently thought her purpose in life was to invent songs with Perrier and sing them as shrilly as she could.

"Yes, the children are coming along, all four of them," replied Iris firmly.

Andrew looked up in alarm. "_Four _children_?_ Don't tell me they had _another_ baby!"

"Well, actually, Mrs. Matthews _is_ expecting, but that will be her fifth child. The Matthews also have a girl about your age. She's called…" Mrs. Carr furrowed her brows as she struggled to remember. "…something like Jane? Jenny? No, it was more like Janie…or perhaps Jeanne…"

"Jeanine," Andrew's father supplied.

"Ah, yes, that's it! Jeanine! She always stays home, so you've never met her before. I don't know why they're bringing her over this time, but-" Iris winced as her son began to scream and beat at the table with his fists. "What?"

"NO, PLEASE, NO, NOT ANOTHER ONE!" Andrew yelled, all composure lost as he imagined an older, psychopathic version of Candice smashing through his stuff while singing. "CAN'T I STAY IN HERE WITH YOU GUYS?! WHY CAN'T THEIR KIDS GO SOMEWHERE ELSE?!"

"Absolutely not!" Leon barked. "We adults have important things to talk about! Why don't you like the Matthews children, anyway?"

"They're _crazy_, that's why!" Andrew half-wailed, half-sobbed. "They completely demolished my room last time! And I'm betting their older sister is more insane than the rest of them combined!"

"Amy's not crazy!" two-year-old Perrier babbled. "She sings so well!"

Andrew headdesked.

Mr. and Mrs. Carr exchanged a look. "Sometimes I think their experiments went a little _too_ well," muttered Leon darkly.

Iris frowned. "Shush, will you?!" With an irritated expression, she turned back to Andrew. "I don't care. You either stay in your room and entertain the kids or I'll take away your laptop."

Andrew said nothing, wondering how many weapons he could smuggle from the kitchen before the demons arrived.

A half hour later, Kyle and Nora Matthews pulled up the drive with their mob of children in tow. Andrew peered at them from around the edge of the stairwell, electric flyswatter at the ready. Dave and Candice tumbled out first, already in the middle of a screaming fight. Mr. Matthews stepped out next, circling around to hoist Amy, who was whistling an earsplitting tune as usual, out of the back seat. As Mrs. Matthews clambered out of the passenger's side, Andrew was disturbed to see that her belly bulged out under her shirt. _The fifth Matthews scourge is on the way,_ he thought dejectedly.

Last of all came a girl who looked about six or seven years old. She had the same dark blonde hair and light gray eyes as her siblings, though her thick glasses made her appear _somewhat_ saner. _So, this is the mysterious Jeanine_, thought Andrew.

"Why won't you allow me to participate in your conversation?" she snapped at her mother, her voice already inflected with the air of superiority that marked the Erudite. "It's not as though I would go about broadcasting your experiments!"

"I don't know what's gotten into you, Jeanine," replied Nora, shaking her daughter by the shoulders. "We've offered to bring you over plenty of times, but you always opted to stay home and do whatever it is you do in that makeshift laboratory of yours!"

The girl groaned in frustration. "That's because those were _pointless_ meetings for the sake of _sociali_-"

"Hello, Iris & Leon," Nora cut off her daughter's continued protests. "Sorry about Jeanine. She thinks we adults are gathering to hatch some kind of evil plot without telling her about it."

"That's NOT what I said!" Jeanine yelled. The adults chuckled uneasily.

"It's quite alright," said Leon quickly. As Iris pulled her sons down from the stairwell, Mr. Carr turned to Jeanine and said, "These are my children, Andrew and Perrier. I don't believe you've met them before."

"Hi," she muttered icily, scrutinizing the boys as though they were rabid lab rats.

"Hi," Andrew returned her greeting just as coldly, tightening his grip on the electric flyswatter behind his back.

"Hellooooo!" Perrier warbled, causing Amy to shriek with laughter. She wriggled out of her father's grasp and the two toddlers began to jump around in circles, singing tunelessly.

Iris clamped her hands over her ears. "Let's head for the kitchen."

Sighing, the adults rounded up the other children, who had already scattered all through the house, and herded them upstairs. Andrew took up a defensive stance by the doorway to his room with his new weapon as Dave and Candice, still screaming and punching each other savagely, were tossed inside. Amy and Perrier followed, yodeling gleefully.

"Play nice, kids," said Mrs. Carr cheerily. She pushed a scowling Jeanine into the room and locked the door behind her.

"Wait, WHAT?!" yelped the girl, rattling the door handle. Turning to Andrew, she demanded, "Do they _always_ do that?!"

Before he could respond, Dave picked up the bedside lamp and charged straight at him. "**WAR!**"

The older Carr child gritted his teeth and swung the flyswatter. ZAP! A loud scream of pain followed, accompanied by the smell of burnt flesh. _Desperate times call for desperate measures,_ thought Andrew grimly.

"NO FAIR! YOU HAVE A WEAPON!" yelled Dave. "CANDICE, HELP ME!"

The third Matthews child, who had been trying to silence her little sister and Perrier by slapping them, stopped her assault and looked up. For a moment, Andrew hoped she would just laugh at Dave, but instead, Candice charged him as well, crying, "HOW DARE YOU DO THAT TO MY BROTHER, YOU MONSTER?!"

Together, Dave and Candice cornered Andrew, wrestled the electric flyswatter away from him, and took turns shocking him with it.

"AHHHHHH!" Andrew shrieked at the top of his lungs. He hoped his cries of distress combined with his attackers' shouts of glee and Amy and Perrier's singing would be loud enough to penetrate downstairs to the adults.

"_**SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU!**_" Jeanine yelled, hurling something towards the open walk-in closet. A flash of blue lightning arced through the room. Dave, Candice, and Amy froze, staring at the glowing, multicolored sphere that now hovered in midair.

"IT'S THE CANDY BALL!" they cried hysterically, turning as one and scrambling into the closet. Andrew's and Perrier's mouths fell open in shock.

"Come _on_, go catch the glowing ball!" The Erudite girl gestured impatiently towards the closet, plainly wanting to get rid of them. "It'll give you _candy_ if you catch it!"

Perrier laughed and toddled after the three younger Matthews without a moment's hesitation, but Andrew folded his arms and stayed where he was. "I'm not going anywhere near those four! I'm rather fond of my sanity, thank you very much."

"Valid point," Jeanine conceded, jumping to lock the closet. "Just don't get in my way." Turning back to the bedroom door, she muttered, "Now, I wonder how this latches…"

"How did you make that floating thing?" asked Andrew curiously. He had visited Erudite headquarters hundreds of times but had never seen anything of the likes of it.

Jeanine grimaced as she fired what looked like a tiny laser at the keyhole. "You wouldn't understand it even if I told you."

"Why are you trying to go outside, then, now that you've trapped all the little ones?" Andrew questioned, annoyed at being denied the secrets of the engineering marvel he had just witnessed.

"Again, it's beyond your limited mental capacity as an average seven-year-old child to comprehend, so please stop pestering me," Jeanine responded curtly as she tested the doorknob. It remained firmly shut. Next, she tried wedging several metal pins between the doorframe, but it still wouldn't budge.

_That's it. She's crossed the line._ Wondering what kind of terrible parenting it took to produce four children who were all abnormal in different ways, Andrew yanked Jeanine by the arm and pulled her around until they were face to face. "I don't know who you think you are," he growled, "but you have no right to talk to me like that! I am not retarded, unlike the freaks you call your siblings!"

Jeanine wrenched herself out of his viselike grip and glared at him. "Prove it!"

Shaking with anger, Andrew crossed the room to his desk and pulled a metal contraption out of the drawer. He jammed it roughly onto the door handle and turned a crank on the side. The bedroom door immediately sprang open.

It was Jeanine's turn to look astonished. "How on Earth did you do that?"

"You wouldn't understand it if I told you," Andrew scoffed. "As a typical seven-year-old, you do not have the sufficient mental capacity to grasp the concept." An awkward silence followed.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Jeanine gave in at last. "It's just…I've never seen anyone below Middle Levels who can understand anything beyond food, play, or sleep." She stopped and thought for a minute. "I made the flying candy machine by putting some neon lights and candy in a plastic sphere. There's a hatch at the bottom that springs open with the application of pressure, and on top, some multidirectional rotor blades, which respond to the onboard sensors."

"I made my lock-picker using a simple leverage system attached to a serrated edge, kind of like a can opener," Andrew replied, wincing as muffled screaming filtered out from the closet. "How can you stand it, living with them day in and day out? I only have _one_ sibling and I think I'm going nuts. You have _three! _And isn't another one on the way?"

"Yes, due in a month, actually," muttered Jeanine. "That's why I invented that glowing orb. It gets them distracted so I can hear myself think. Now, back to the mission. I came here because I think our parents are up to something. I mean, I know they often meet up just to kind of chat, but this time feels…different."

Andrew nodded in agreement. "I know! They've been whispering about something or other over the phone for weeks!" _Finally, I have somebody my own age to talk to who's actually sensible enough to understand what's going on!_ he thought in wonder.

"I was hoping the adults would let me in on what they were doing, but clearly that's not going to happen," Jeanine explained. "So, I'm going to eavesdrop on them. Want to come?"

"Absolutely."

Together, the two children eased their way down the stairs toward the dining room. Andrew grabbed two wine glasses off a shelf and handed one to Jeanine. They pressed the glasses to the wall and put their ears to the openings.

"—still don't understand why you must use the osmo-fission method to artificially manufacture your children," Iris's voice buzzed through the wall. "It's highly volatile. Couldn't you just build a genetically modified baby in a standard growth tank?"

"No, that would be ineffective for our purposes," came Kyle's voice. "The growth of organic life forms over a period of months of cell division inevitably causes mutations within the chromosomes. We need our offspring to perform very specific tasks to the factions they go to, and we cannot afford for things to go awry. All four so far have been grown in this method, and while Jeanine appears to have turned out more or less as we wanted, the other three suffer from ADHD induced by ribosomal abnormalities arising from overheating in the incubation stage. Hopefully, the riskier but more expedient osmo-fission machine will rectify these problems."

* * *

"What are they talking about?" Andrew whispered, struggling to make sense of what he'd just heard. "It sounded like you and your siblings were…_assembled_ in a laboratory."

Jeanine nodded grimly. "That's precisely what it means. I wonder what for?"

"No idea."

* * *

"So, which child is next?" asked a voice belonging to Leon.

"Abel, a male, whom we are conditioning for Abnegation," replied Mrs. Matthews. "After that, we may need to go another round for the other factions if our plan is to work."

"Your eldest was born for Erudite?" Iris asked.

"Yes," Kyle responded. "She'll be the main leader when all of this is over. Along with us, of course."

"Why didn't she follow your naming scheme?" asked Mr. Carr.

Nora chuckled. "To be honest, we hadn't planned out everything yet when Jeanine was born. She was sort of a trial run, so we gave her a random name. Later on, as we were mapping out Dave's genome, we tried to get Jeanine to change her name to Erinna, but she absolutely refused to respond to it. Oh well, it makes things less obvious, anyway."

"So, will you bring the little ones in tow on the big day?" asked Iris.

Mrs. Matthews sighed. "I guess we'll have to. Saturday's the only day we can do this sort of experiment in peace, and the daycare centers aren't open on Saturdays. Which is quite illogical, if you ask me."

There were murmurs of agreement followed by the rustle of paper. Through the door, Andrew heard his mother say, "Well, a toast to the new baby, then."

"To Abel, the future manipulator of Abnegation!" all four adults cheered. The sound of clinking glass echoed through the walls.

"Any new twisted thinkers detected? It would only take one to bring down our whole plan," said Kyle after a moment of silence.

"You mean the Divergent?" asked Leon's voice. "Here, I have a list of suspects. Solana Kenly, currently in Amity, is a possible Amity-Candor combination, or so our sources say. And Richard Eaton the Stiff could very well be an Abnegation-Dauntless blend…" Mr. Carr proceeded to go through the list, which consisted of several dozen names. "Should we eliminate them?"

"The ones that have chosen, yes. As for the kids…wait until they've taken their aptitude tests," advised Nora. "We don't want random murders all over the place."

* * *

_WHAT?! _Andrew felt as though all his limbs had gone numb. Were his ears deceiving him, or had his parents just presented a list of people to be killed? Jeanine frowned as well, though she looked more intrigued than disturbed.

* * *

Suddenly, the ring of a mobile phone reverberated around the dining room. "Hello? Yes…no, no, next week…_what?!_ How did they find out…alright, we'll be there right away!" Nora hung up quickly. "Kyle! The omega experiment!"

Mr. Matthews gasped. "Oh my goodness! Iris, Leon, I'm sorry, we really have to go! Urgent business! We'll tell you the rest next time!"

As one, Andrew and Jeanine turned and raced up the stairs, bursting back into the room just as the adults filed out of the kitchen downstairs. Andrew twisted the lock closed behind him as Jeanine let their younger siblings out of the closet, all covered with sticky candy.

"Darn it, it sounded like they were just about to get to the interesting part!" Jeanine complained, frustrated. "What do you think their 'plan' was?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," shrugged Andrew, feeling somewhat shaken. _I must've heard wrong. Maybe they were exaggerating about the killing. _"See you here next time?"

She nodded. "Of course! We've got to find out what's going on!"

* * *

_**April 5**_

_**Tori**_

Naomi Wu clenched her fists, feeling her blood boil as her young son wriggled out of his chair yet again. "SIT BACK DOWN!" she screeched, taking hold of his arm. "YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE UNTIL YOU LEARN YOUR ABC'S!"

Across the kitchen table, Tori, who was doing her homework listlessly, winced as George burst into tears. "Mom! He's only three!"

"Keep your mouth shut, young lady!" Naomi roared. "You are no better! Loads of Erudite children learn to read when they're just two, but you only started when you were five. _Five!_ What is wrong with the two of you?!"

Tori opened her mouth to reply, but at that moment, George decided to make a run for it.

Screaming in exasperation, Naomi grabbed her son by the neck of his shirt and hauled him back to his chair. "WHY-CAN'T-YOU-LEARN-YOU-STUPID-LITTLE—"

George's wail of fright drowned out Mrs. Wu's yelling. _How dare she do that to poor Georgie?!_ Tori had had enough. Mustering a courage she didn't know she had, George's sister backed up and ran at her mother full-tilt. She was so light that her mother barely moved, but she did slacken her grip on George. Without thinking, Tori snatched his arm and pulled him into the upstairs bathroom, wedging the door shut behind her.

Trying not to think about what kind of punishment her mother would give her later, Tori wiped the tears away from her little brother's face and hugged him. "There, there, stop crying."

"T-Tori?" George hiccupped, looking up at his sister through watery eyes. "Why am I so stupid? I wish I could get smart, so Mom won't yell at me anymore…"

Tori clenched her fists. "You are _not_ stupid, Georgie. Mom's just being delusional." She shuddered as their mother stomped up the stairs, demanding for them to come out of hiding.

"Tori?"

"Yes?"

"I'm scared." George shook and began to sniffle again.

Tori bent down and looked at her brother, her dear brother, the baby fat still in his cheeks contrasting with his solemn black eyes. _With father dead of sickness and mother so stressed out all the time, we've got to stick together._

"Don't be scared, Georgie. I won't let anyone hurt you while I'm around."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

* * *

_**April 23**_

_**Jeanine**_

"Be good," said Kyle Matthews as he embraced each of his children in turn. "I'm going to visit mommy at the hospital now. She's giving birth to your new baby brother."

Jeanine snorted, knowing her mother was doing nothing of the sort. Hours before, Nora had begun screaming, _supposedly_ in terrible pain, at which point Mr. Matthews drove her off to the "hospital" at Erudite headquarters. He then returned to pick up his children, who were to await the arrival of their new sibling in the hospital's waiting room. Jeanine had watched the same thing happen three times before, and she knew now, after eavesdropping on that conversation, that it was all an act. Her mother was probably upstairs in one of the laboratories right now, setting up the "osmo-fission" machine that would construct the new baby. Whatever that meant. Not for the first time, Jeanine wished her parents would let her in on what they were doing. _It's not as though I were a reckless idiot, like Dave, or a blabbermouth, like Candice, or even a complete nincompoop, like Amy,_ she thought resentfully, watching her siblings chase each other around and around the room.

Knowing from experience that her parents would not be back for several hours, Jeanine pulled the glowing orb out of her pocket and tossed it into the air. "Go fetch!" As her siblings squealed with delight, she swiftly made her escape.

* * *

Two floors above them, Kyle walked into his private laboratory and sealed the door shut behind him. Nora, who had removed the layer of padding she wore around her middle to fake her pregnancy, stepped out from her hiding place behind a row of black supercomputers.

"You did remember to pay the C obstetrician team to fake the birth records, right?" she asked her husband critically.

"Yes, obviously. Now, can you turn on the generator while I boot up the computer?"

Mrs. Matthews hesitated a moment, looking around the laboratory. "I don't know…we're using such untested machines with so volatile an energy source…it seems so dangerous."

Mr. Matthews patted his wife reassuringly on the shoulder. "I know it is, but it's the only way. You and I both know why we can't use the growth tank method again; it's far too unreliable. If Operation Convergence is to succeed, our children's genetic blueprint cannot stray by even a single nucleotide."

Nora nodded reluctantly. "I know, I know." Slowly, she turned and plugged in the gigantic, oven-like machine beside her. It was made mostly of titanium, with a clear viewing window on its side to the vat of oil within. A dull, orange glow came to life in the machine, turning brighter and brighter until it shone with the brilliance of a small sun. When a light on the osmo-fission machine blinked green, the two adults dropped a hair apiece into a special flask near the control panel so that it could begin scanning their DNA.

"Read me the traits we want programmed!" called Kyle, sitting down at the command computer.

Nora took out her clipboard. "Blond hair, gray eyes, sycophantic disposition…"

* * *

Downstairs, the candy ball floated out of the door to the waiting room and into the hallway. Eagerly, the three younger Matthews children ran after it, completely oblivious to the strange looks the other Erudite gave them.

* * *

Meanwhile, Jeanine wandered the labyrinthine corridors of the vast basement, marking down all the oddities she saw in a small notebook. Despite the fact that she had been exploring Erudite headquarters for as long as she could remember, Jeanine had yet to map all of it._ There are so many fascinating gadgets here,_ she mused, recalling the particularly memorable time she had discovered a prototype for a hovercar wedged under a mountain of old computers. _How can anyone just stash their inventions down here and forget about them?_

As she walked, Jeanine thought about her strange trip to the Carrs' house last month. _What did Mom and Dad mean when they said they were creating Abel to lead Abnegation? Who are the Divergent, and why do Iris and Leon want to eliminate them? _

_Mr. and Mrs. Carr are just like my parents: focused only on their obscure scientific works and unwilling to tell their children anything. Perrier, too, is exactly what I've come to expect of other kids: senseless and annoying._

The older boy, Andrew, however, intrigued her. _He's bright, alright, maybe almost as intelligent as I am._ Jeanine decided this could be both a good thing and a bad thing. _He could help me figure out what the grown-ups are up to, but, as I've seen, it would be almost impossible to trick him if I ever need to._

* * *

Back in the laboratory, Kyle and Nora jumped as an alarm pealed out from the machine.

"Energy's building up within the auxiliary chambers!" yelled Mrs. Matthews, peering into the vat of now simmering oil. A small blob had formed within it, which was gradually taking on the shape of an infant.

"Oh, no, this is what I was afraid of," muttered Kyle, typing furiously into the computer. "Can you shut it down?"

Nora slammed her fingers over the control panel, punching buttons left and right. Nothing she did appeared to have any effect. "The system's gone into a positive feedback loop! Nothing can stop it now!"

The machine rattled ominously. Suddenly, flames shot out of the top and and began creeping down the sides.

"Try everything!" cried Mr. Matthews in panic. "There _has_ to be a way to stabilize it!"

The glass panel of the viewing window cracked. "KYLE! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE! IT'S GOING TO EXPLODE!"

"AND GET THROWN OUT OF THE FACTION FOR DOING ILLEGAL EXPERIMENTS?!" demanded Mr. Matthews, who was now tugging on every single plug in sight.

"I WOULD RATHER BE FACTIONLESS THAN DEA—!" Nora Matthews never got to finish her last sentence. With a shuddering BOOM! the glass panel broke, sending boiling oil and flames everywhere. The containers holding the various flammable, acidic, and radioactive chemicals in the Matthews' laboratory melted in the heat, creating a huge explosion just as the three younger Matthews children ran past the corridor outside.

* * *

Fifty feet below the ground, Jeanine felt the walls shake as a series of powerful vibrations rattled down the hall. Panicked, she sprinted up the stairs and burst out of the Erudite library, just in time to see a ghastly mushroom cloud form above the decimated building two blocks away, right where her parents' laboratory used to be. And Jeanine Matthews screamed.

* * *

_**September 15**_

_**Evelyn**_

Evelyn Johnson picked her way through the rubble of the factionless sector. Her father couldn't afford a car, which meant that she had to walk home from school every day. The Erudite sector of the city was nowhere close to the area, but she was hoping to avoid the vicious kids if she took the long route. Pulling on a giant gray coat to cover her faded blue dress, she ran to catch up to a group of Abnegation children walking on the cracked pavement ahead.

"Hello," they greeted her, dipping their heads. "Are you in our faction? We've never seen you before."

Evelyn flushed and lowered her voice to a whisper. "No, I'm trying to hide from bullies. May I walk with you?"

The Abnegation children nodded and made a space for her. Evelyn smiled with relief and disappeared into the mass of gray. _This is why I like Abnegation the best out of all the factions. They are always understanding, willing to let a stranger hide amongst them with no questions asked._

"Hey, look, it's the Stiffs!"

_Never mind._ Evelyn groaned as she spotted clusters of Dauntless, Candor, and Erudite children up ahead, pointing and laughing at them. She should've known the Abnegation were the targets of bullying as well. _Still, it's better to be attacked as a group than on your own, by the members of your own faction._ She lowered her head and prayed silently in her head, _Please don't recognize me, please don't recognize me, please don't recognize me._

"Hey, where're you going, Stiffs?" yelled a group of Erudite boys. "Off to collect wood to heat your houses? Or is that too high-tech for you?"

Laughter echoed around the dilapidated buildings. Evelyn glanced at the children beside her. If the Abnegation were angered by this remark, they didn't show it. They marched on, faces blank, their footsteps a steady rhythm on the concrete.

"Don't bother talking to them, they'll probably offer to wash your floors or something!" a group of Dauntless across the street shouted back.

"Know why they wear gray?" called out a pack of Candor girls as the Abnegation passed them. "Because their minds are gray, and that's the truth!"

More laughter. A stone sailed out of nowhere and struck one of the Abnegation boys walking at the front of the group. As they stopped, the children from the other factions closed in.

"You're not moving an inch until you allow us to paint you!" leered a Dauntless boy, advancing with a can of spray paint. Before he could reach them, though, one of the Erudite stopped him, peering into the group.

"Well, well, well, look who we have here. Evelyn Johnson, disguised as an _Abnegation!_" The girl laughed maniacally, waving her companions over.

_I'm screwed._

"She failed her math test today, the sorry excuse for an Erudite did," announced one of Evelyn's classmates. "What do you know? She's actually _aspiring_ to be in Abnegation now!"

Evelyn grit her teeth, fighting the urge to cry. "So what if I am? These people are actually decent, unlike you dirty lowlifes!"

"Forget it, girl. You're no good for any faction!" someone jeered, and the surrounding kids laughed. Evelyn tried but failed to think of a snappy comeback.

"Please leave us alone." The Abnegation children stepped in front of Evelyn and gazed evenly at their assaulters. "We are not bothering you, and she is distressed enough as it is."

The Erudite advanced, unimpressed. "She is one of us, and we'll deal with her how we like."

Knowing the charade was lost, Evelyn turned and bolted across the street. The Erudite and a few Dauntless gave chase, shouting nasty insults as they followed her into the jungle of half-collapsed buildings. Though most of the Dauntless could outrun her, Evelyn was so used to escaping them via the factionless sector that she knew hundreds of hiding places. When all but a couple of children had gotten tangled in the piles of debris that littered the area, Evelyn faked a turn and jumped behind a dumpster. Pairs of pounding feet pattered down the adjacent alleyway, then all was silent. As the adrenaline faded from her blood, all of the troubles of the day seemed to drop onto her head at once like sack of bricks. Evelyn began to sob. _Why does everyone have to be so mean to me?_

"Hey! Who's in my territory?!" came a voice out of nowhere.

The girl instinctively sprang to her feet and scrambled backwards. A disheveled figure stood before her, dressed in a mud-splattered red shirt and black pants.

As the person stepped closer, Evelyn could see that it was a boy with yellowish skin and curly brown hair. He looked maybe two or three years older than her and carried a serrated blade. He frowned as he regarded the terrified child. "Are you factionless?"

Evelyn shook her head, edging slowly away from the boy. "N-no," she said shakily, "the other kids in my faction were being mean to me, and I was trying to escape. I'm really sorry." _Please don't kill me!_

The boy sighed with relief and pocketed his knife. "Good. I thought you were another scavenger trying to take my territory. What faction _are_ you?"

"Erudite, though I-I'd give anything to be born somewhere else," Evelyn replied, sniffling. "No matter how hard I try, I just can't understand things quickly enough, and then they torture me for being so dumb!"

"Is that so? It's nice to hear someone who hates those freakin' geeks as much as I do. Say, I'll make you a deal." The boy grinned mischievously. "If you promise never to recite the Erudite manifesto again, I'll let you walk through this area every day to avoid those bullies."

_Well, that's simple enough._ Evelyn nodded immediately. "Deal."

"Well, see you around…what's your name?"

Evelyn hesitated. Giving out her name to a factionless stranger was a bad idea, or so she had been trained to think. _But he's also the first person to treat me kindly in a long time, _she reflected. "I'm Evelyn Johnson."

"Zachary Valenzuela."

* * *

**What is Operation Convergence? Why does Zachary hate Erudite so much? And, most importantly, will George ever learn his ABC's? R&R!**


	3. Expanding Horizons: 2245, Age 10-11

**Trivia #1 Answer:** So, which Sheronnale is writing this story? The responses are tied:

#1— 1 vote

#2— 1 vote

#3— 1 vote

The correct answer is…#3! If you guessed right, have a cookie! If you guessed wrong, thanks for taking a shot at it anyway! Have a cracker!

**And now, without further ado…**

* * *

**YEAR 2245: AGES 10-11**

_**June 25**_

_**Johanna**_

"Checkmate!"

"NO!"

"Yippee, I win!"

Johanna and her little sister, Yvonne, laughed as they played chess. A while ago, somebody had noticed that the ancient game's black-and-white tiles and objective rules fit perfectly with the values of Candor, and now it had taken the faction by storm.

The doorbell rang. Grumbling, Mr. Reyes opened the door to reveal a freckle-faced young man in a cheery yellow shirt.

"Hello!"

Johanna tapped Yvonne on the shoulder and pointed. "Look! It's Freddie!" In a blur of black and white, the two girls shot towards the door and dragged their brother inside, laughing.

Mr. Reyes folded his arms and barked, "Johanna! Yvonne! Get away from him! He's not part of the family anymore!" As the girls backed away resentfully, he turned to the teen and snapped, "How _dare_ you come back here? Didn't you get the message when we didn't come on Visiting Day last year?"

Frederick Reyes smiled blandly and replied, "Don't be so mad, Dad. I thought you just forgot, so I decided this year _I'd _be the one to come find _you_."

Mr. Reyes felt his blood boil. "You are not my son anymore! Get out!"

Johanna winced. _That was harsh._ She'd never been a fan of insults, even though the Candor hurled them around like yo-yo's.

"Oh, for goodness sakes, Graham," entreated Mrs. Reyes from behind him, "don't be so angry. Let the boy stay, just for today."

"He's _betrayed_ us, Suzanna!" protested Graham as his wife and son embraced one another. "He left Candor for those lying, delusional—"

"Graham!"

"It's okay," interrupted Fred quickly. "I just missed y'all and couldn't resist popping over here. But if I'm causing trouble, I'll leave."

"Nonsense!" said his mother. "You've come a long way. You've got to stay for dinner."

"The day I let an Amity eat in my house is the day I die!" roared Graham.

"Stop being so unreasonable! Amity is as good a faction as us!" Suzanna snapped.

Johanna watched her parents argue, feeling her stomach clench uncomfortably with the tension. She didn't understand why the Candor detested the Amity so much. Even if they did sugarcoat their words from time to time, they seemed infinitely happier than most of the members of her uptight faction.

"Mom, Dad, can Fred take us out for a stroll? That way he won't have to be in the house," Johanna begged, wanting to stop the fight but unable to bear the thought of seeing Fred leave again so suddenly.

Mr. Reyes looked as though he might spit fire. "You are NOT going ANYWHERE with that—"

"I think that's a _brilliant_ idea," interrupted Suzanna, glaring at her husband. "After all, we don't take the girls out very often. The fresh air would be good for them."

"NO!" roared Mr. Reyes, pulling on his hair in frustration. "What if he takes them to Amity and…and…_converts_ them?!"

Suzanna rolled her eyes. "Nonsense. Fred'll bring them back by dinner. Right, Frederick?"

The oldest Reyes boy nodded. "Promise."

"Suzanna, for God's sakes! Just because you came from Amity doesn't mean-"

"Let's get out of here," Fred muttered in an undertone to his siblings, pulling them outside. As Yvonne began pelting her brother with questions about Amity life, Johanna glanced back at the ebony door that marked their apartment. _My mother was a transfer?_

"Freddie! Freddie! Can we go see your new home? PleasepleasepleasepleaseyPLEASE?!" cried Yvonne, her brown braids flying wildly out behind her as she hopped up and down.

"Yeah, can we?" Johanna asked. She had never been anywhere beyond the Candor sector of the city; her father had a very low opinion of the other factions.

Fred hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Yes, it should be okay. I've finished my initiation now, and anyone is welcome at Amity headquarters." He led them down the walk to his truck, which was loaded with empty crates.

Johanna clambered into the bed of the truck while her sister hopped onto the front next to her brother. The rough-hewn crates released a scent of fruit, heavy and tangy, which contrasted sharply with the smog Johanna had grown used to in the city center. As the truck rumbled forward in the warm, humid air, she leaned forward expectantly. _All my life I've wondered what it would be like to live on a farm,_ she mused. _Today, I'll finally get to find out._

The school and city center ambled slowly past. Seen from the moving bed of a pickup, they felt somehow more solid, more imposing, than from the buses Johanna had ridden all her life. She tried to remember what she'd learned in Faction History about these buildings. _Long ago, there were dozens of skyscrapers in the city center, but most collapsed following the population deflation during the Prefaction War. Now, the council keeps only the vital buildings maintained, allowing the rest to deteriorate…_

After a time, the truck suddenly jolted upwards, pulling Johanna out of her daydream. She peered down at the road below. The asphalt, so smooth and black just minutes before, had now turned cracked and gray. The tall buildings were gone as well, replaced by heaps of twisted metal and rotting garbage. In the distance, Johanna thought she glimpsed a figure sifting through the muck.

"Fred, where are we?" asked Johanna nervously, tapping on the pane of glass that separated her from her siblings up front. "Is this where the Abnegation live?"

"No, factionless," came the reply.

Yvonne's eyes grew wide as she strained to look at her dilapidated surroundings. "_Factionless?_ Why would these people be factionless?"

"Because they failed initiation in whatever faction they chose and got kicked out," Johanna told her sister through the window. She thought for a minute. "How does that happen, Freddie? Don't they give you a test that tells you what faction you're suited for?"

Fred sighed as he wound his way around the gigantic potholes in the road. "Yes, they do, but that test isn't 100% accurate. Some people may be suited for a faction, but not enough to make it. Others choose to return to the faction of their birth, even if they're not meant to be there at all. Those tend to get kicked out as well. Thankfully, the Amity initiation wasn't that difficult. You just need to be able to grow a plant and not argue with anybody for a month."

Suddenly, a middle-aged woman in a tattered black dress stumbled out to the middle of the road. She squinted at the crates stacked at the back of the truck and let out a hoarse cry. "Food! Give me food!"

"I'm sorry, there's nothing in there," Fred called to the woman as she ran after the truck. "I sold everything in the city!"

He stepped on the gas. The battered old Amity truck shot forward, rattling over the uneven pavement. The beggar woman disappeared as they rounded a corner, her hungry cries ringing after them. Johanna shuddered uneasily, beginning to regret her choice of sitting in the bed of the truck. "Th-they must have a terrible life if they need to beg for food like this, right?"

"_Horrible _lives," Fred emphasized. "Since they are without a faction, they have no government to take care of their needs. They live as vagabonds, performing menial jobs in exchange for scraps of food and clothing. It's the worst way to live. Abandoned. Alone. Jo, Vonnie, never let that happen to you. Even if it means choosing a faction you have an aptitude for over one you'd like to live in."

The girls shivered, unused to seeing their brother looking so solemn. "Is that why you left Candor?" asked Johanna after a moment.

Fred nodded. "I would never make it past the initiation. I could never be completely honest _all_ the time. It hurt to leave the family, though."

Johanna pondered his statement. _I feel like that all the time, too. Some things are better left unsaid. Does that mean I'll have to leave Candor as well? Daddy will be so angry with me. But I don't want to end up factionless._

"Uck. Who lives _here?_" Yvonne demanded shrilly as a row of dull gray cement houses came into view. "These houses look so boring!" _Well,_ thought Johanna, _at least my parents will definitely get to keep Vonnie._

"That's where the Abnegation live. They patterned their houses after their clothing: plain, neutral, inconspicuous. They shun material wealth above all else."

"But don't they get tired of all the grayness? I mean, seriously!" continued Yvonne. "What strange people!"

Her brother frowned as he stopped to check his map. "They're not strange. One thing you learn when you transfer factions is that the people one faction aren't any better or worse than those in other factions. They just have different visions."

Johanna doubted her sister understood what Fred meant, but she found the thought intriguing. _Not any better or worse. Just different. _Her father would certainly have something to say about that.

Soon, the rows of bland houses ended, followed by another lonely stretch of abandoned buildings. Far away, a gap in the concrete opened up, revealing a large expanse of greenish goo. After fifteen minutes or so of driving, they arrived at what Johanna could now see was a marsh. "There's the Erudite Headquarters," Fred called out to his sisters, pointing to a cluster of skyscrapers made of glass and steel. Each was topped by an assortment of solar panels, windmills, and strange, boiler-like machines. Unlike the Abnegation sector of the city, this area was bustling with activity. Silver cars with black roofs filled the streets, along with blue-clad pedestrians rushing off to unknown destinations. _I always thought the Candor and Erudite were quite similar, since facts are truth,_ Johanna thought. _But apparently not. The Candor would hate to live scattered like this; we all have our apartments within the Merciless Mart so we can run into each other and engage in spontaneous debates._

They passed the Dauntless section of the city last. Johanna would never have noticed it if her brother hadn't pointed out the ordinary-looking glass building near the train tracks.

"Wait, the Dauntless live in _there?_" asked Johanna incredulously. "All of them?" The building didn't look like it could hold more than about fifty people, and it was clearly empty.

"Well, that's the entrance to their headquarters," Fred corrected himself. "They all live in an underground cavern below that."

"They live in a _hole?!_" exclaimed Yvonne.

"They're Dauntless. What do you expect?"

At long last, the old truck arrived at the fence. A few teens in black T-shirts and shorts guarded the large metal gate. Most had their hair dyed in strange colors and were covered in piercings and tattoos. To Johanna's shock, all of them also carried guns.

"What's your business?" asked a ferocious-looking man with a green mohawk.

"Hi!" Fred waved cheerfully. "I am Frederick Reyes, of Amity. I came in a few hours before to deliver food to the city, and now I'm returning to the fields. How are you doing?"

The guard ignored his friendliness and peered at the truck. "Why are you riding with two Candor girls?"

"Oh, they're my sisters," answered Fred cheerfully. "This is Yvonne, and the one in back is Johanna. I thought I'd bring them out to show them the fields. Do you think we look alike? Mother always said-"

"Stop!" barked the man with the mohawk. "I don't care who they are. You are not bringing people from other factions outside the city!"

"It's Visiting Day," Fred pointed out. "Lots of my faction members' families came out to see their children."

The man snorted. "Don't tell me you were so desperate you went into the city to retrieve your relatives yourself."

Fred looked genuinely puzzled at his statement. "Why not?"

The man face-palmed. "The _point_ is—"

"Oh, c'mon, Ivan, let 'em through," said a young woman with purple hair, walking up to see what the holdup was about. "You're being paranoid! They're just two little girls. We could easily shoot them if they get up to any funny business."

Johanna froze. _Did she just say 'shoot'?_

The mohawk guy scowled and walked over to the electronic keypad. With a deep groaning, the gate slid open. "When are you bringing them back out?"

"Oh, in three or four hours," said Fred, steering carefully through the narrow gate. "Can't be too late, else—"

"Okay, okay, get out of here!" cried the man, covering his ears.

Fred sighed to himself as he drove out of the gates of the city and onto a cracked dirt path. "The Dauntless never seem to appreciate friendliness. They're so grumpy if they're not risking their lives."

But Johanna wasn't listening. She was staring in fascination at the lush green orchards that stretched as far as the eye could see, beginning about four hundred yards from the gate. Unlike the twisted, half-dead trees that grew among the piles of debris in the city, these trees had dark, smooth bark, dense foliage, and brightly colored spheres hanging in their branches. A subtle change had come over the air as well; the metallic tang of smog that forever shrouded the city was gone, and in its place was a sweet, unidentifiable scent.

"You know the fruit you buy at the supermarket? Apples, oranges, pears, mangos…they're all grown right here," Fred told his younger sisters. "It's not harvest time, though, so don't try picking any."

"What's that sound?" asked Johanna, tilting her head at the faint buzzing in the air. "Tractors?"

"Nah, those are insects," said Fred, laughing at his sister's confused expression. "I know, it's hard to believe those little winged things in our bio textbooks are actually real, but I assure you, they are."

He pulled over at a dirt rut and brought the truck to a shuddering stop. "This is my new house, you two."

_Wow,_ Johanna said inwardly, surveying the wooden cabin before them. _It's not very big compared to Candor headquarters, but it certainly looks cozy._ Made of dark, unpainted wood, it almost blended into the grove behind it. While her brother helped Yvonne out of the truck, Johanna swung a leg over the edge and hopped down. When she landed, her feet seemed to sink a little. Cautiously, Johanna looked down and discovered that the ground appeared to be covered in a thick, crumbly layer of dark brown grit punctuated by blades of grass. _So this is dirt._

Squealing, Yvonne pushed open the door to the cabin and ran inside. Johanna picked her way carefully over to her brother, careful not to soil her white shoes. "Fred, you forgot to lock the door."

The young man laughed, ruffling Johanna's hair. "That's one of the nice things about Amity. Nobody ever steals. It would cause too much conflict." Fred considered this for a minute. "Actually, the Abnegation don't lock their houses, either, since there's literally nothing to steal. Neither do the Dauntless. They'd just love to see someone try to take their things so they can beat them up. It's only Candor and the paranoid freaks, Erudite, who are worried about security."

Johanna laughed and followed her brother into the cabin. Like the outside wall, the room and its tables and chairs were made entirely of wood. Yvonne stood next to the fireplace, gazing up at a canvas of multicolored splotches. "What's this weird thingy?" she asked as they walked in.

"That's art," Fred explained, smiling at the canvas. "I made that when I first got here."

Johanna stared up at the shapeless blobs. "Why? What is it for?"

"Well, in this case, for decoration," answered her brother, picking up his banjo. "But I made it just for fun. It helps me express my feelings."

Johanna and Yvonne exchanged doubtful glances. "How can those blobs express your feelings?"

"Remember when we were young and we used to doodle on scraps of paper? How we laughed when we tried to draw certain people and it never came out quite right? That was a kind of art," Fred tried to explain. Again, he was met with blank stares. "Okay, listen to this."

Fred strummed his banjo and began to sing. Johanna chuckled and thought her brother looked ridiculous at first, but as her sister began to clap to the beat, she found herself relaxing and swaying along with the tune.

"Hey, Fred, what's cookin'?" asked a young man with sandy hair, popping his head through the open doorway. "Mind if I show you a tune?"

"No prob, Greg!" said Fred happily, handing his banjo to the man. He immediately struck up a lively melody as the three siblings clapped along.

Less than five minutes later, a woman in her mid-thirties showed up, carrying a small lamp. "Hey, Fred, thanks for lending me your lamp!"

"Come join us!" Fred beckoned, picking up another banjo and trying to imitate Greg's strumming. Johanna and Yvonne watched, fascinated, as more and more people streamed into the cabin. Within minutes, there was a full party going, complete with singing, dancing, and even refreshment. Yvonne blinked, her Candor eyes unused to all the bright reds and yellows. Johanna, on the other hand, thought the group looked beautiful.

The festivities lasted the whole afternoon. The Reyes sisters, who were normally shy around strangers, found the Amity not at all imposing. Before they knew it, they had been introduced to everyone in the room and were dancing along with them. _Unlike the Candor, who look at everyone like a potential debate opponent, the Amity are happy just to meet us,_ Johanna observed.

At some point, Fred checked his watch, did a double take, and plucked his siblings out of the hoedown. "Sorry, everyone, I've got to go. My dad will kill me if I don't bring Jo and Vonnie home before dark. You know how the Candor are."

Looking genuinely sad to see them go, the Amity waved goodbye to the Reyes. "Bye! Come again next time!"

"Goodbye!" Johanna called to them as their truck pulled away from the cottage. "I love the Amity. They're so…happy."

"That they are," Fred agreed, stopping next to a giant, dome-shaped glass building. "Before we go, do you want to see the greenhouse?"

"Yes!" Johanna and Yvonne exclaimed, jumping down from the truck again as their brother pushed open the heavy glass door.

While the outside air smelled of cool dew and ripe fruit, the air inside the greenhouse was much richer and damper. Plants filled almost every available space, standing in pots, creeping along the ground, and climbing the glass walls. Breathing deeply, Johanna had the distinctive feeling that she was somewhere ancient, primal.

"Look at that," said Fred softly, pointing to the large tree that took up most of the center of the greenhouse. It appeared to be suspended in a giant pool of water. "Isn't it amazing? It's over fifty years old."

The setting sun cast a golden light through the tree's foliage, making it look as though it were laced with tiny, twinkling jewels. For a moment, the three people stood in silence, soaking up the peace and quiet. _I like this place,_ Johanna decided.

As though he'd read her thoughts, Fred said quietly, "It would be best not to tell father about how much fun you had here."

Yvonne frowned. "But what if he asks us? Not saying would be the same as lying."

Fred sighed and looked down at his sisters. "Do you really think it would benefit father to know you came here, when he could live far more blissfully without this knowledge?"

"Are you saying we should hide the truth?" asked Johanna. She found the idea both frightening and strangely exhilarating at the same time. Never before had she considered that lying could be for someone else's benefit.

"That is a choice you'll have to make on your own," replied Fred. "C'mon, time to go."

* * *

_**August 13**_

_**Marcus**_

"What happened to him? TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED!"

Marcus hid behind his mother as Dexter Eaton besieged the Erudite doctor walking out of the autopsy room.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Eaton. After performing a thorough analysis, I have been unable to locate any anomalies within the integral structure of the subject's anatomy. The brain and cranium are still intact, suggesting no concussion or head injury, and there is no evidence of residual clotting within the auxiliary vessels, so there was no cardiac arrest—"

"STOP WITH THE JARGON!" Mr. Eaton roared. "All I want to know is _who killed my son, and why?_"

"There is no evidence of murder—" the doctor began, but was cut off yet again.

"Of _course_ you're saying that!" Dexter snarled. "Somebody within your faction is responsible, and you're covering for them!"

Marcus groaned inwardly and looked around for a place to escape. Unlike Dexter, he had never been fond of his aloof brother and wanted nothing more than to have some peace and quiet.

"Law is not within my area of expertise. You will have to contact the Candor if you wish to file a lawsuit," replied the Erudite coldly.

Mr. Eaton looked as though he was about to hit him, but his wife dragged him quickly away. "Come on, let's get out of here. There's no use talking to these morons. They'll never admit the truth."

"Do you want the body for burial?" the doctor called after them.

"We'll come back with a coffin tomorrow," Zoe Eaton answered over her shoulder.

For most of the drive home, what remained of the Eaton family was silent. Marcus watched his father furrow his brows, muttering to himself as he turned around corners. One of the reasons Dexter had chosen to transport supplies from Abnegation headquarters to the factionless, he knew, was because he needed to do his thinking while he drove.

For the thousandth time, the boy wondered why his father was so sure an Erudite was responsible for his brother's death. _Could he have possibly made any mortal enemies in the two months since he transferred? Or was it because somebody had a grudge against my parents?_

The minute they got home, Mr. and Mrs. Eaton immediately sat down at the rickety kitchen table and began conversing in low, angry voices. Marcus thought about going upstairs to his room, but decided against it. _There's nothing to do up there besides dusting off the empty shelves._

"Mom, Dad, can I go to the library? I know you need to be alone."

To his shock, Dexter stood up smacked him in the face. "ARE YOU INSANE?! YOUR BROTHER'S JUST BEEN KILLED, AND YOU JUST CARRY ON BEING YOUR OWN NONCONFORMING SELF?!"

Marcus shrank against the wall. "N-not the Erudite library, I m-meant the public one…"

Mr. Eaton stepped forward and grabbed a fistful of his son's short brown hair. "Do you know why Richard is dead?!" Through watering eyes, Marcus looked pleadingly up at his mother, hoping she would rescue him. However, Zoe simply looked on silently, her expression unreadable.

"Not everyone is fit for one faction, Marcus," breathed Mr. Eaton in a haggard voice. "There are some misfits. Weirdoes who can go into two or more factions. Your brother was one. On the Aptitude test, his results came out Abnegation and Erudite, equally. And he _left_ it that way on his answer sheet, the idiot did! Well, the Erudite can't stand to have exceptions, because it'll screw up their quantum mechanics or whatever, so they _killed_ him."

Marcus winced from the terrible revelation and the burning pain in his scalp. "But…but how can you be sure?"

"Think about it," said Mrs. Eaton grimly. "A perfectly healthy sixteen-year-old dies at Erudite headquarters, two months after he's taken his aptitude test. What other explanation could there possibly be?"

"But Richard _joined_ Erudite!" protested Marcus weakly. "Surely they'd think he's not a threat?"

"Don't ask me _what_ those crazy people are thinking," snarled Mr. Eaton, dropping his son to the floor. "Richard is not the first! At least seven Divergent have died mysterious deaths in the last ten years! No evidence, no puncture wounds. They're just found on the ground, out cold. You are NOT going to be next, UNDERSTOOD?"

"But I get so bored in Abnegation—" Marcus began.

Dexter picked up an umbrella from the nearby stand and beat Marcus savagely on the back. "YOU ARE ABNEGATION AND YOU ARE STAYING ABNEGATION!"

"Dex, what are you doing?" asked Zoe mildly. "Don't kill our only remaining child!"

"I'm going to beat the Divergence out of this boy. It's for his own good," Dexter replied, whipping his son again and again. "You think Abnegation is boring, foolish boy? There are things only we councilmembers know that could uproot the city! I _would_ show them to you when you're older, but NOT if that RIDICULOUS EYEBALL FACTION KILLS YOU FIRST!"

Marcus's screams of pain echoed around the small house.

* * *

_**October 2**_

_**Natalie**_

The chilly autumn wind curled through the air, bringing the first hints of winter as it whistled through the cracks of the many crumbling buildings in the city. Ten stories above the ground, a girl with wavy golden hair laughed as she leaned out the doorway of a moving train, enjoying the feeling of iciness on her skin as she hurtled along at more than 70 mph.

"Where exactly are you taking us again, Nat?" asked one of the Dauntless, Ethan, as he spun a pocketknife lazily on one finger.

Natalie grinned mischievously. "To one of the factionless sections of the city, the part farthest from the marsh. There are loads of brick buildings and telephone poles there that are perfect for climbing!"

"Have we been there before?" asked another Dauntless, a girl with dark red hair and dozens of piercings in her ear.

"I doubt it, Liz. It's pretty hard to spot from the train. I only found out about it 'cuz Mom showed it to me," Natalie answered.

Liza sighed enviously. "You're so lucky to have a Dauntless leader for your mother, Nat."

"Yeah," agreed another Dauntless boy, Wilson. "Our parents all have no problem risking their _own_ necks, but when _we_ go out for a little adrenaline rush, then they get all Abnegation grandmother-y on us!" He stopped and continued in a high-pitched voice, "Just because _I_ throw knives around doesn't mean _you_ should, honey!"

"So true!" the pack of Dauntless on the train shouted in agreement. They proceeded to do a series of progressively more outlandish imitations of their parents, clamoring over each other to be heard.

"Hey, I haven't got it all good, you know!" Natalie protested. "My dad is a real pain when it comes to grades."

"He is," asserted Vera. "I wonder why he chose Dauntless, actually. Your dad gets so worked up whenever you fail a test you'd think he was Erudite."

"But you know what?" shouted Natalie above the roaring wind. "Remember that 1,000 word report that's due tomorrow?"

The Dauntless answered her with a mixture of blank stares and panicked expressions.

"I haven't even started. Not one word. Because _I. Don't. Care!_" Natalie ended on a whoop that was soon swallowed by her friends' as the train hurtled down the slope towards ground level.

"Now?" asked the Dauntless, looking to their unofficial leader for guidance.

Natalie tensed by the doorway. There was a metal fence with spikes in this part of the city that she needed to jump over, and one false step could seriously injure her. "Three…two…one…Now!" Natalie bent her legs and jumped as far as she could. As the girl sailed over the chain link barrier, the tip of her shoe caught on one of the spikes, tilting her off balance. With a loud THUD! Natalie crash-landed on the cracked concrete below. "Ow…" She examined her four limbs gingerly. A few new cuts had appeared over the numerous scratches she already had on her skin, and they were slowly oozing blood. Satisfied that nothing was broken, Natalie climbed to her feet and watched as her companions disembarked from the train with varying degrees of success.

"C'mon!" Beckoning to her friends, she scrambled nimbly up the nearest telephone pole. The rotting pillar creaked and swayed under her weight, though it didn't seem to be in immediate danger of collapse. From the top, the Dauntless girl stopped to look out at the city spread out before her. Far in the distance, she could just make out the skyscrapers of the city center, gleaming in the afternoon light. The marsh lay, an undulating plain beside it, dotted with the occasional tree. As she looked down, Natalie could see the dense mess of abandoned buildings below her, practically begging her to come explore. Knowing the power supply to these parts of the city had been cut long before, she broke off a piece of electric wire so that it was now only attached to the adjacent pole. She took a deep breath and launched herself towards a gap between two buildings, screaming with exhilaration as she swung within a foot of the ground before arcing high into the sky again. The other kids abandoned their schoolbags by the tracks and copied Natalie, swinging from pole to building top to abandoned 18-wheeler without a moment's hesitation. Before long, they moved on to climbing buildings, finding precarious footholds among the crumbling bricks and teetering billboards.

"I dare you to climb to the top of that huge trash pile!" Liza challenged Ethan, who immediately scaled the mountain of junk with no difficulty.

"Wilson! Bet you can't make it to the top of that five-story building!"

"Are you kidding me? My five-year-old sister could do that blindfolded!"

"Hey, Vera! Try cartwheeling across that narrow ledge!"

The five Dauntless scampered through the abandoned suburbs for hours, challenging each other to do ever riskier things. _This is the most wonderful feeling in the world, _Natalie thought, feeling the adrenaline coursing through her blood with every jump and swing.

It seemed like only a few seconds later when Vera sidled up to her as she scaled her fiftieth building. "Er…I'm sorry, Nat, but I gotta skidaddle. My folks think I'm at Kirsten's house finishing my homework!"

Natalie looked up in alarm at the darkening sky. "Good lord! How long have we been here? HEY, EVERYONE! TIME TO GO!"

"But everything's more fun at night!" the Dauntless protested, their voices echoing around the abandoned suburbs.

Natalie sighed. "I know, but Vera needs to go, and so do I. We might be grounded if we're out too late."

Seeing the wisdom in her words, they dropped to the ground from all sides and sprinted as one back towards the train tracks. As they rounded a corner, a figure suddenly shuffled forward out of the darkness and stood in their path. _What the heck?_ Natalie, who was running at the head of the pack, skidded to a halt and saw that it was a grimy-looking, toothless old man, wearing a filthy red shirt and black pants. Factionless.

"Give me some food!" he croaked, looking pleadingly at the five children. "Please! The younger factionless took all the good begging spots by Abnegation!"

Before Natalie could respond, Wilson jumped in front of the man and drew a knife. "Get out of the way or hunger will be the least of your problems!"

The man let out a howl of despair and made a grab for the snack bar sticking out of the boy's pocket. Wilson jumped backwards and slashed downwards with his knife.

"STOP!" Natalie screamed, wedging herself between them. Luckily, the factionless man didn't seem to be seriously injured. _Why didn't he just hand over the snack bar?_

Wilson frowned. "Nat, the freakin' hobo's trying to mug us!"

"He's just hungry, there was no need to stab him!" the girl snapped, rummaging in her bag for an orange and handing it to the man. "Wouldn't _you_ fight someone for food if you hadn't eaten for a week?"

"So you're just going to give him what he wants, like a coward?" asked Liza incredulously as the man mumbled his thanks and disappeared into the darkness.

"This isn't a question of bravery, it's a matter of helping out a fellow human being!" Natalie retorted, turning towards the train tracks again. "Being Dauntless doesn't mean you have to beat up someone just because you can!"

Wilson, Vera, Ethan, and Liza exchanged looks behind her back. "Whatever you say, Nat."

* * *

**The introductions are done. In Chapter 4, the characters will start running into each other. Which leads us to our…**

**Sheronnale Trivia #2!**

Two of the children who appeared in the _previous_ chapter (Chapter 2) will eventually fall in love. Can you tell who? Unfortunately, it would give too much away if I were to reveal the answer next chapter, so you will have to wait until said couple actually gets together in the story to find out. You can start submitting guesses, though. (**WARNING!** I don't write a lot of fluff, so _please_ don't expect a whole drawn-out, angst-filled romance. Rather, the relationship exists because it motivates one of them to make a decision.) As usual, winners earn a virtual cookie. Here are some rules to help you guess:

1) This pairing is not incestuous, slash, or femslash.

2) The lovers may or may not have been in the same scene in Chapter 2. For example, Evelyn x Zachary is just as likely as Jeanine x Zachary, even though Evelyn met Zachary but Jeanine didn't.

3) The two people do not necessarily end up married. In other words, Tori x Andrew is completely possible despite the fact that Andrew marries Natalie later.

4) I prefer plausible pairings to unlikely ones. Interpret this however you wish.

**R&R!**


	4. Making New Bonds: 2248, Age 13-14

**YEAR 2248: AGES 13-14**

_**February 6**_

_**Evelyn**_

"Look out there. Isn't it beautiful?"

Shivering in her old fleece jacket, Evelyn stepped carefully to the broken window and looked out. The snow was falling thickly over the city, hiding the sharp edges of the buildings in a serene white blanket. Gone was the roar of downtown traffic. From the thirty-fifth floor, the hills that were cars and smaller houses looked almost like lumps of melted sugar.

"It's lovely," she murmured, soaking in the fairytale-like landscape.

"I thought you'd enjoy it," said Zachary, smiling. "I _would_ move in up here, but there's no running water and the elevator's broken. Want to go down to my place now?"

Evelyn nodded and followed him down several dizzying flights of stairs. At the bottom, Zachary pushed open a rusted door to reveal what must've once been a reasonably luxurious three-bedroom apartment. As with all the other factionless buildings in the city, it was now in a grimy state of disrepair—paint peeling off the walls, cracks creeping over the ceiling, and broken windows admitting the frigid air. Like little kids, Evelyn and Zachary threw a cloth over the rickety table and crawled beneath it.

"You know, factionless life isn't really so bad," Evelyn remarked as they sat facing each other.

"Really?" Zachary sounded surprised. "You're probably the only person in the whole city who would say that, even counting the factionless."

The girl shrugged. "Beats being teased by the other kids or listening to my father's drunken yelling all the time."

"Will he _ever_ get over his depression?"

"How _can_ he, when he has to deal with people looking at him like he's an idiot every time he's called in to clean up the labs?"

"That's one of the reasons I hate Erudite," declared Zachary with sudden vehemence. "They think everyone else is trash, just because they scored higher on a stupid little test! What are they there for, anyway? Ruining other people's lives?"

Evelyn looked up. "Ruining people's lives?"

"They're the reason I'm an orphan!" Zachary spat.

_What is he talking about? _wondered Evelyn. She had asked him about his past many times before, but he was always frustratingly elusive. "What do you mean?"

Zachary hesitated. "I…never mind." The boy folded his arms and stared off into the distance.

"Come on," Evelyn coaxed, burning with curiosity. "You can tell me anything. I won't tell anyone else."

The boy was silent for a long time before saying softly, "Remember that extremely cold winter six years ago? My parents and I teetered on the brink of death, freezing and starving…A couple of Erudite were testing some new chemicals. Said they'd pay my parents a thousand bucks to be human guinea pigs. We had little choice but to accept."

The girl held her breath. "Then…"

"Turns out they were testing death serum. As you can see, the experiment was successful."

Evelyn gaped. "That's horrible!" _How could anyone be so cruel?!_

"You don't know the least of it," said Zachary bleakly. "My parents were the lucky ones. Some other factionless came back deformed. _Insane_."

Silence fell within the small cloth tent. "I'm so sorry," she whispered after a moment. _No wonder Zachary hates my faction. They're so self-centered they feel no sympathy for anyone else._

"It's not your fault, you just happened to be born there," he stated at last. "But when you grow up, don't become one of them."

Evelyn shook her head vigorously. "Never!"

"Good."

For a long time, neither of them spoke, huddling in their self-made sphere of warmth in a world of merciless cold.

* * *

_**May 16**_

_**Marcus**_

"He did that _again?!_"

"Doesn't surprise me anymore, really. It's become a habit for him." Marcus winced and rubbed his sore side, peering out the door of the deserted classroom to make sure nobody would come barging in.

Johanna sighed. "Didn't your father give you a beating just the day before yesterday? He didn't used to do that more than once a month. Are you sure he hasn't gone a little crazy?"

"He probably has," Marcus reflected. "But I can't just go and rat him out. It would completely destroy our faction's reputation. As much as I hate him, I just…can't." _For the good of the city and the protection of the data, I must stay silent. What a nice trap Father's got me in._

"Well, at least let me take you to the nurse. I…well, _you_ could say you fell down the stairs or something."

Johanna wore the same concerned look as she did three years ago, when she accidentally stumbled upon Marcus crying in a far corner of the school. Serious, quiet, and withdrawn, nobody had ever paid any attention to the Abnegation boy, so Marcus was shocked when the Candor girl stopped and offered to help him.

"_What happened to you? Were you beat up by bullies or something?" Johanna bent down to examine the figure curled up on the floor._

"_I-It's nothing, just leave me alone," Marcus mumbled, pressing himself closer to the wall._

_Johanna shook her head. "No, it's not nothing. I'm Candor, I can tell."_

_Marcus looked up at her with a mixture of shock and fear. "I'm not telling you anything! Your faction will tell the whole school what happened to me!"_

_Instead of looking offended, the Candor girl smiled and sat down beside him. "No, you can tell me, I can keep a secret. My faction says I can't lie, but that doesn't mean I have to go around saying every single thing that ever happened to me, does it?"_

_Marcus rubbed his eyes, feeling his whole body ache. Never before had he seen his father so angry. He hoped he'd never lose his temper like that again. "Well, what if somebody asks you about me?"_

"_I can say we're from different factions, so I'm not __**supposed**__ to know anything about you," Johanna answered carefully. "That's not strictly lying. Just tell me what happened. I'm sure you'll feel better if you do."_

_With nobody else to turn to, Marcus gave her a brief history of his family, starting with his brother's mysterious death and ending with his father's manic campaign to "beat the divergence out of him." The effect was cathartic—all the pain, grief, and terror he'd had to endure seemed to explode in his words, leaving him with a curious feeling of lightness. Through it all, Johanna listened patiently._

Now, at thirteen, she was still the only one willing to hear his troubles. Johanna never comforted him with empty words, such as "I feel so sorry for you," or "You'll be alright," which sounded nice, but meant nothing. Nor did she suggest radical plans to get back at Dexter, plans that, though fun to talk about, tended to leave one feeling more hopeless than ever afterwards. Instead, she simply listened, offering any practical advice she could give. For this, Marcus was extremely grateful.

"No, I went to the nurse yesterday. It would look too suspicious," Marcus reminded her. "I-I can manage on my own."

"Alright, if you're sure," said Johanna doubtfully. Though nobody was around to hear them, she lowered her voice as she asked, "Have you ever thought about, you know…escaping? When the time comes?"

Marcus frowned. "You mean transferring factions?" He didn't know what to think of this idea. _I'd be free of Father forever. But there's just one problem: where would I go? I'd never be safe in Candor or Erudite, but I could never live in Amity or Dauntless._ "I don't know. Maybe, maybe not."

"Mm," Johanna nodded contemplatively. Just then, the bell rang, a sharp, piercing ring that left them deaf for a few seconds afterwards. "I gotta go. Come find me later if the pain gets worse, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks, Johanna."

"Hey, what are friends for, right?"

* * *

_**November 30**_

_**Tori**_

"For this next project," announced the aging science teacher, "I will give you a piece of technology, which you are to disassemble. In a 5,000 word paper, you will describe each of its components, including its size, shape, material, and weight, and then formulate ways in which the item could be improved. Am I clear?"

_5,000 words?_ thought Tori in horror. _Did she say 5,000 words?_

The class of Erudite children nodded their heads and their teacher brought out an assortment of strange gadgets.

"Very well, then. Please get into groups of five."

Hunched over at the back of the class, Tori didn't even bother to try and join the numerous groups that were forming throughout the room. As an eternal loner and C- student, nobody would willingly accept her as a research paper partner.

When almost everyone had gotten together with their buddies, the teacher called out, "Who's not in a group yet?" Four hands shot into the air. "Alright, Jeanine, Andrew, Tori, and Evelyn, you'll be a group then."

Tori sighed. The four of them were frequently thrown together for projects, and none of them liked it one bit. It was no coincidence. They were the misfits, the leftovers nobody wanted. Evelyn wasn't a bad person, Tori reflected, but she was always so shabbily dressed that she resembled the factionless. Also, the girl was, if possible, even duller than Tori when it came to schoolwork. As usual, she folded her hands on the desk and put her head down, watching listlessly as their teacher dropped a radio on their desk.

"Take it apart, Andrew," Jeanine commanded as she pulled out a notebook and began outlining the essay. "Section one…1,000 words on electromechanical telecommunications…"

_Andrew and Jeanine, on the other hand, are freaks even among the Erudite,_ thought Tori as she watched Andrew disassemble the radio and sort the pieces into piles, muttering the names of each one under his breath. She had seen those two converse for hours in the library about obscure formulas and impossibly complex theories. For the longest time, Tori had assumed they were fraternal twins or something.

_This is boring. The nerds don't need me and I have nothing to do._ Tori pulled out a blank notepad and began doodling idly. _Beats listening to science jargon._

Evelyn slid over and tapped her on the arm. "Do you have any idea what we're supposed to be doing?" she asked quietly.

Tori shook her head. "I _never_ do. Honestly, I am the bane of Erudite."

"I know! We were born into completely the wrong factions!" the other girl exclaimed. She looked anxiously around her, but Andrew and Jeanine were too absorbed in examining the radio's parts to hear them. "I'm getting out of here as soon as I'm sixteen. You?"

Tori looked at Evelyn, surprised to find someone so desperate to transfer out of her home faction. "I'd like to. My mother would have a heart attack, though."

Evelyn shrugged. "So would my dad, probably. But who cares? It's my choice, my life. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life cleaning laboratories. Faction before blood, remember?"

"You said it!" Tori grinned. "Say, if you're so sure you're leaving, what faction are you going to?"

"That's the problem," Evelyn admitted. "I'm not sure what I'm suited for. I could never go to Candor; I'm not a constant liar, but I can't tell the truth _all_ the time. I'm certainly not Dauntless material, either. I mean, look at me! I don't know what their initiation is, but I'd never pass. Amity and Abnegation are alright. I'm thinking about going to either of those. What about you?"

Tori closed her eyes, allowing her imagination to carry her away. She pictured herself in a yellow dress, strumming a banjo in an orchard while her friends sang along. _Yucky! Definitely not Amity!_ Next, she imagined herself in a white blouse and a black skirt, pouring out her most embarrassing secrets before an assembled crowd. _Not Candor. NEVER._ She then put herself in a loose gray robe, passing out blankets and food to a line of dirty factionless people. _Nope, not Abnegation._ _I'd probably die of boredom._ Last, she imagined herself in a black tank top and slacks, firing a gun into the air. _Dangerous and foolish,_ said her mother's voice in her head. _But still, it seems oddly appealing. _"I think I'd be—"

"Tori! Evelyn!" Jeanine pounded her fist on the table. "I'm going to delegate your tasks now, so _listen carefully and DON'T MAKE MISTAKES!_"

Evelyn fidgeted nervously, but Tori returned her gaze with a defiant glare. "So what if I do? Not everyone is a paranoid perfectionist like you, you know."

"You derailed our lab last time and caused us to get an F! If you do that again, I _swear_ I will reconfigure the power grid so that it short-circuits every single electronic appliance in your house!" Jeanine growled through clenched teeth.

Tori smiled at the memory of the lab, which involved six flammable chemicals, two Bunsen burners, several jars of exploding dye, and, eventually, the Dauntless firefighters. "I don't think I can make a bomb out of the pieces of a radio, but that's not going to stop me from trying again."

Jeanine picked up her book and made as if to throw it. Andrew, who had been watching the escalating argument in fear, broke in, "Stop! Calm down! Let's just try to work _peacefully_ for once, okay?"

Tori grimaced. _Andrew, Andrew, always the peacemaker._ She had actually been hoping that Jeanine would throw the book so she could have an excuse to give her a good punch in the gut.

"How can we have _peace_ if _those two_ can never do anything _right?!_" Jeanine snapped, rounding on her friend.

"I…just let them do what they want, and I'll fix it up, okay?" he said at last, exasperated.

"If anything goes wrong, it's your fault then," grumbled Jeanine, returning to her drafting.

Across the table, Tori and Evelyn winked at each other.

* * *

**This chapter was shorter because the next one will be quite…surprising. Please review!**


	5. Shocking Revelations I: 2250, Age 15-16

**A/N: As promised, this chapter includes some major discoveries. Enjoy!**

* * *

**YEAR 2250: AGES 15-16**

_**June 15**_

_**Andrew**_

Mr. and Mrs. Carr sat at the kitchen table, muttering to each other as they sorted through a gigantic pile of documents. Across the table, Andrew idly typed out some codes on his laptop, while his brother Perrier played outside. Watching the intense concentration with which his parents worked, Andrew wondered how long it would take for them to notice if both their sons were to suddenly vanish off the face of the Earth.

_Probably never,_ he reflected with mild amusement, _until some administrator in school contacts them._ Andrew glanced at his watch, wondering if there was still enough time to run down to the library and borrow some books. However, it was the date, not the time, that caught his attention: June 15.

"Hey, today's the Choosing Ceremony!" Andrew blurted out suddenly.

His parents barely looked up from their work. "You know we never go to those," replied Iris flatly. "It's a complete waste of time."

Andrew frowned. "But you _will_ go when it's _my_ turn, right?"

"We'll worry about that in a couple of years…" Mrs. Carr mumbled and turned back to her work.

_One of these days they're going to forget they even have children,_ thought Andrew. "Mom. I'm choosing _next year._"

Iris didn't appear to have heard him, but Leon jerked his head up. "You _are?!_"

"Yes! I'm fifteen, and everyone chooses when they're sixteen!" He laughed at their startled expressions.

"Operation Convergence!" Mr. Carr shook his wife's arm urgently. "We need to pass it on!"

Iris yelped and sent papers cascading over the floor. "AH! I totally forgot!"

"Pass on what?" asked Andrew, bewildered.

Mrs. Carr clutched her head. "Oh dear…how are we going to explain this without the database?"

"That's the problem." Leon looked as flustered as his wife did. "I guess we'll just have to stick with the general faction setup and war strategy. Why oh _WHY_ did the Matthews insist on keeping everything in their lab computers?!"

"Matthews! Shouldn't we tell Jeanine about this too?"

"Of course! Her grandfather masterminded the whole plan!"

Andrew watched their exchange in utter confusion. _I haven't seen them this distressed in years._ "WHAT IN THE NAME OF ERUDITE ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!"

Mr. Carr ignored him and raced up to his study. Mrs. Carr waved her arms in the general direction of the living room. "Andrew, go call up Jeanine and tell her to come here while your father and I attempt to locate some files. And make sure Perrier stays out." With that, she ran upstairs.

_What could possibly be so important it would make them act like this?_ Andrew wondered as he picked up the phone. _Why can't Perrier know? And what was that about the Matthews?_

He punched in the numbers and waited on edge as the phone rang once, twice, thrice…

Jeanine picked up on the tenth ring. "Hello?"

"It's me, Andrew. Listen, I have some rather strange news for you. I was telling my parents about how I will be choosing my faction a year from today, and they suddenly panicked and started yelling something about 'Operation Convergence.' It sounded like it was a joint project between your parents and mine. Can you come to my house? They want to explain it to us."

"'Operation Convergence'?" Jeanine sounded skeptical. "I went through all of the files on my parents' computers after they died, and I never saw anything of the sort. Was it an experiment or an applicable procedure?"

"I don't know any more than you do. I only just heard about it," Andrew explained. "Please, could you just come over?"

"Yes, definitely," she answered. "This is suspicious."

* * *

The Carrs emerged from their study just as Jeanine arrived. The teenagers settled down on opposite ends of the couch and watched as Mr. and Mrs. Carr hauled in several bulging folders. Hearing the commotion, Perrier tried to edge into the living room, only to be swiftly thrown out by his father.

"So, what is this 'Operation Convergence'?" Jeanine prompted Andrew's parents as soon as they had dumped everything on the coffee table. Mr. and Mrs. Carr looked at each other.

"Well, let's start from the very beginning," said Leon, taking a deep breath. "Okay. Kyle Matthews's father, Wyatt Matthews, or Jeanine's paternal grandfather, apparently started out as a factionless man. Somehow, he met Kyle's mother, Claire, who managed to persuade the Erudite to let Wyatt join the faction. Obviously, the factions were not as strict about this kind of thing back then as they are now. Several years later, Wyatt died of some kind of virus, just before Kyle was born. When Claire cleaned out his study, she found a secret compartment behind his main laboratory, stashed with exotic technology—"

"_Exotic_ technology?" Andrew cut in.

"Satellite dishes, GPS, sonar equipment, and the likes. Things we thought we had forgotten how to make after the Prefaction War," Iris explained.

"In there were also several hard disks with terabytes upon terabytes of data. It obviously contained extremely sensitive information, for most of it was encrypted with a highly complex algorithm. Claire, unable to crack the codes, left the equipment and hard drives alone and gave them to Kyle when he grew up. Mr. Matthews, who was far more adept at computers than his mother was, immediately set about unlocking the files. It didn't take long before he realized that the documents detailed an extensive plan for some kind of citywide takeover. Interestingly enough, there was a whole subdirectory with instructions 'for the Carr family.' This is why the Matthews let us in on the secret. After years of hectic decoding, we unearthed a whole flood of weapons blueprints, lab experiments, war plans…"

"Hang on!" Jeanine interrupted. "Was my grandfather _born_ factionless?"

"And why was he trying to take over the city?" Andrew added, feeling the room sway.

"Nobody knows about Wyatt's past, actually," admitted Mrs. Carr. "He never even discussed it with his wife. As for why he would be planning to seize control, a lot of that information was contained in folders we couldn't open. But from what we _were_ able to decipher, whoever created the plans thought the integral structure of the faction system is flawed."

In response to the baffled looks on Andrew's and Jeanine's faces, Leon asked, "How much do you know about the Prefaction War?"

"It began in 2065 and lasted until 2086," Jeanine answered promptly. "So much governmental data was destroyed that we no longer know precisely why the war happened. But it was a worldwide struggle between nations vying for power and resources."

"Correct," said Mr. Carr. "This is why the factions were formed: to straighten out the human race. But apparently, Wyatt believed that the city was designed incorrectly so that it would create a mutant, evil form of human known as the Divergent. These are people who have no single good quality and hence cannot be sorted into one faction. They are rebels by nature and, if allowed to multiply, will eventually bring chaos and total destruction upon us. According to the files, our task was to purge the population of the Divergent. The Matthews would then completely reorganize the city so that it no longer encourages the production of mutants. The plan was titled 'Operation Convergence,' as convergence is the opposite of divergence."

"Between the Matthews and us," continued Iris, "we decided that Wyatt's mission was worthy of pursuing. Just as the files predicted, the Divergent began appearing more and more often starting around twenty years ago. We have been systematically eliminating them." She pulled out a three-page packet of paper filled with names. About two-thirds had red lines through them.

"Wait, when you say 'eliminate,' you don't mean…" Andrew stopped, unable to finish the terrible thought.

"We kill them," stated Leon simply. "Don't act so surprised. It's the only logical way to deal with such individuals. It would be impractical to keep them all locked up somewhere, and kicking them out to the factionless sector so they could breed would be even riskier."

_Something is seriously wrong here._ Andrew stared at his parents, feeling sick to the core. Since he was seven, he had been trying to convince himself that he had misheard his parents that day, that they weren't going around assembling lists of victims for extermination. Now, here they were, right in front of him, openly admitting to being murderers. "How…" he began in a choked voice. "How can you be sure these Divergent are bad?"

"Remember the factionless man who broke into Erudite headquarters and shot three people? He was a Divergent! They are anarchists!" said Iris vehemently.

"That's because the Erudite accidentally killed his brother when they were testing explosives!" Andrew protested. "He wasn't trying to destroy the city!"

"That's what they _want_ you to think," replied Mr. Carr with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "Andrew, Jeanine, you must understand. Most of the people in this city are ignorant of the great danger that is creeping upon us. Certain members of Abnegation even encourage it. You need to be able to tell right from wrong, truth from lies. In the coming years, this will be _your_ battle to take on."

"Why does the burden rest on us?" asked Andrew. "I'm sure if you just told some of the other Erudite about it—"

"That is out of the question," Leon cut in firmly. "Nobody would believe us. We would be jailed for inventing false information."

"Then why are you telling us at all?" Jeanine questioned. "What do you expect us to do if we can't tell anybody else?"

"That's where _you_ come into the picture," said Iris, shifting so that she was directly facing the girl. "Jeanine, you and your siblings were born for a very specific purpose. Your parents programmed your genes, chromosome by chromosome, and then artificially constructed you in a laboratory growth tank to ensure that you would turn out exactly as they wanted."

The teens exchanged a look. The conversation they had overheard all those years ago was finally about to be explained. "So, I'm not technically their child?"

"You are. Your parents still designed you based on their own genetic template. But they also gave you extraordinary intellectual capabilities and a certain disregard for human emotion. They figured these traits would make it easier for you to become the leader of Erudite and begin altering the city in the way described by your grandfather's files," Mrs. Carr told the girl. "Your siblings Dave, Candice, Amy, and Abel were supposed to be the leaders of Dauntless, Candor, Amity, and Abnegation, respectively. Together, they would persuade their factions to follow your lead and ensure a smooth transition. Unfortunately, mutations caused your siblings to become deficient in various ways, as you may recall. In order to rectify the situation, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews attempted to create Abel using the more accurate but far riskier osmosis-fusion method. They died when the assembly machine overheated and exploded."

While Jeanine absorbed this shocking revelation, Andrew asked, "What about me and Perrier? Were we also preprogrammed?" He found the idea highly disturbing, to have a military mission written into one's DNA.

"No, we do not approve of such…_radical_ meddling, especially when it comes to our own kin," said Leon. "The Carr family is not supposed to deal with governmental affairs, anyway. Our task is simply to keep the Divergent at bay."

Jeanine looked skeptical. "Why did my parents never tell me any of this?"

"You were only seven when they died," Leon reminded her. "We thought we'd tell you kids about this when you were older, say twelve or thirteen. But then there was that accident, and, well, Iris and I forgot how quickly time passed."

"If you don't believe us, these are the genetic blueprints your parents drafted," said Iris, handing Jeanine another stack of paper. "I assume you remember what their handwritings looked like?"

As a momentary silence descended on the room, Andrew examined his parents' faces carefully. They wore an expression he knew all too well: the anxious, stern gaze of observing a major experiment in process. _They really believe this is their duty,_ he realized. _But are they right? Are the Divergent really so evil it warrants their deaths?_ Next, he looked across at Jeanine. She was studying the sheets closely, nodding as though in approval. With a shudder, Andrew wondered, _Am I the only one who thinks Operation Convergence might be a very bad idea?_

Jeanine spoke, jerking him from his dark musings. "This all seems genuine. May I take a look at my grandfather's original files? Perhaps I may be able to decipher a bit more of it."

'Well, here's the problem," said Mr. Carr, rubbing his temples with a pained expression. "Your parents, for whatever reason, decided to keep all of Wyatt's files and equipment in their laboratory. I'm sorry to say that the explosion that took their lives also destroyed all of the data. What little backups we had are all right here." He gestured to the messy coffee table.

"We're telling you two about this now so that you can understand the mission your parents strove for," Mrs. Carr explained, breaking the eerie quiet. "In one year you will be choosing your factions. Obviously, if you are to carry on your ancestors' plan, you will need to stay in Erudite. Abnegation will be your first target, as that faction seems particularly effective at turning out Divergent. Amity by its very definition shall remain separate from everything that happens in the city, and Candor and Dauntless you will have to bend to your will."

"Hang on," Andrew broke in, scrabbling at all rational thought he could grasp in the sea of confusion in his mind. "What…what about Perrier?"

Leon turned his head as if checking for intruders before continuing, "He'll be told of this too, when he's old enough to understand. By then Iris and I will be close to retirement, so where Operation Convergence goes from there will be up to the three of you."

_This is surreal,_ thought Andrew, feeling his stomach clench unpleasantly. _I'm sitting in the living room with my parents and my best friend, talking about the fate of the city as though it's a game._ Worse still, Andrew didn't even need to ask to know that his parents weren't really offering him a choice. _They never cared about me as an individual. They have devoted their lives to carrying out this 'Operation Convergence,' and they assume that I will continue in their footsteps simply because I'm their son._ He wondered if his parents had even considered the possibility that he or Perrier might not agree with them. _How can I know for sure if they're right or wrong?_

* * *

_**June 17**_

"I cannot _believe_ there's nothing on here about Wyatt Matthews except a date of death. Nothing!" Jeanine grimaced as she scrolled through page after page on her laptop, oblivious to the hundreds of chattering kids on the playground around her. "This has _got_ to be some kind of statistical anomaly. The Erudite keep such meticulous records on everything, and the _first time_ I actually need to search up something useful on their database, it isn't there!"

Andrew sighed. Though he and Jeanine had very differing opinions of Operation Convergence, the one thing they _could_ agree on was that they were missing some very important pieces of the puzzle. Unfortunately, information was proving hard to come by.

"I thought my parents were holding something back yesterday," he said, thinking aloud. "But if there's nothing in the Erudite archives, I guess there really isn't anything more."

"From what I heard, it sounds like my grandfather was working for some kind of external organization," Jeanine mused.

Andrew looked up. _Why didn't I think of that?_ "How on Earth do you keep coming up with these theories?"

"Well, think about it logically," replied the Erudite girl, examining a small chart on her laptop screen. "Where could Wyatt have gotten all that extinct technology from? Who formulated the plan with him? If not even his own wife knew about Convergence, I doubt he was collaborating with anyone in the city."

"Don't you think that makes the whole thing suspicious?" asked Andrew, jumping at the chance to defend his viewpoint.

Jeanine shook her head. "The fact that my grandfather could've had contacts outside the city makes his plan potentially a lot more complex, but I wouldn't say that it makes it suspicious. After all, the Divergent _are_ a threat to the faction system. The question is, what kind of society did Wyatt Matthews want to create, and was it related to anything outside the fence?"

_This is going nowhere. _"Why can't we just leave the Divergent alone unless they make trouble?" questioned Andrew, exasperated. "And I don't know about you, but I think trying to get rid of Abnegation and taking over the government, no matter what the purpose, is wrong."

"Nonsense," Jeanine scoffed. "I actually speculated about doing the same thing long ago. Consider this: the odds of passing initiation are 48% for Dauntless, 53% for Erudite, 76% for Candor, 91% for Amity, and _100%_ for Abnegation! Statistically speaking, Abnegation has by far the easiest initiation; in fact, if you choose that faction, you are _guaranteed to pass_. You know what that means? They take all the leftovers, the people who aren't brave, smart, honest, or peaceful enough to survive in the other factions!"

Andrew fidgeted uncomfortably. "That's not true. There are wonderful people in Abnegation who genuinely want to be selfless."

"Of _course_ there are," said Jeanine impatiently, calling up another chart on her computer, "but the thing you _should_ be asking is, 'Of the fifty members of Abnegation that are selected to be councilmembers, how many are of the reasonably competent, subservient sort, and how many are the dregs of society?'"

"I think knowing that you were genetically engineered is getting to your head," Andrew replied.

Jeanine glared at him. "Now you're just being unreasonable! How many times have I told you that the Abnegation are complete ignoramuses?"

Andrew opened his mouth to argue back but realized that Jeanine was completely right. She _had_ been complaining about the Abnegation since they were little. _Her reasoning about them taking all the most incompetent people did make some sense, too._ That was why Andrew had mostly given up arguing with Jeanine; she almost always won.

_No matter what she says, though, there's still something wrong with Operation Convergence,_ thought Andrew stubbornly. As his companion returned to her data mining, he mulled the matter over in his head.

_Are my parents really depraved serial killers, or are they just confused? How can they tell if somebody is Divergent? What, precisely, is outside the fence? Who was this mysterious Wyatt Matthews? Is Jeanine evil because she was programmed to take over the city?_ The thought that the person sitting across from him could someday become a merciless tyrant was so disturbing that he decided to push his speculations aside for the moment.

Instead, Andrew focused on the other children scattered throughout the large schoolyard. The Amity held hands in a giant ring around a distant oak tree. They sang cheerily as they skipped, the sound carrying clearly through the air. A few tables away, a group of Candor was engaged in a fierce three-way argument, while the Abnegation huddled in knots under the shade of the equipment building, conversing in low voices. The wild Dauntless were scattered throughout the playground. The younger ones chased each other on the grassy field, while the older ones climbed to the tops of the play structures and the sturdier trees.

Without meaning to, Andrew's eyes drifted to a black-clad figure doing cartwheels on the grass. She was a pretty, slender girl with wavy, golden-blonde hair and light green eyes. Though she was as agile as anyone in her faction, she didn't exude the same aura of violence. He had admired her from afar for a few months now, though he had yet to figure out her name. For a moment, Andrew imagined walking up to her and saying hello. _Not that a Dauntless with any dignity would ever talk to an Erudite,_ he reflected, feeling somewhat depressed. _Still, imagine if we somehow ended up in the same faction…_

"_**ANDREW CARR!**_" The sharp pain of a book striking his arm jerked Andrew back to reality.

"Ow! What was that for?!" he yelped, turning to face a very irritated-looking Jeanine.

"Andrew, I've called you _five times_! Why the heck do you keep spacing out lately?!" she scolded.

"Um, I was thinking about Operation Convergence," Andrew lied sheepishly.

Jeanine sighed and turned the screen of her laptop to face him. "Look what I found."

A giant grid full of words met his gaze. "Wyatt Matthews—Personal Files: Restricted Access," Andrew read from the box next to the pointer.

"You know what that means, don't you?" The sunlight reflecting off Jeanine's glasses made her smile look sinister. "There's a copy of the data in the secret databank."

* * *

_**July 8**_

_**Natalie**_

"Happy sweet 16!" the group of Dauntless stood outside the door, exchanging good-byes and hugs with their host.

"G'bye! Thanks for the awesome b-day bash!" Natalie called, waving to Wilson, Liza, Vera, and Ethan as they filed out of her apartment. She noticed that more than one of them walked a little tipsily. Liza had brought over several bottles of wine, and while Natalie had taken only one sip before spitting it out in disgust, her friends had helped themselves to a generous three or four glasses each. _Alcohol may be the staple Dauntless drink, but I can't stand that horrible taste._

She turned back to the living room and surveyed the huge mess awaiting her. _How can four people make it look like a bomb went off in here?_ she wondered, her gaze skipping from the pizza boxes on the sofa to the confetti that sprinkled the floor like snow. Natalie checked the clock on the microwave: 11:47 PM. Her parents probably wouldn't be home for another few hours; her mother, as a Dauntless leader, used the less hectic night hours to check around the compound, while her father had the night shift patrolling the Candor sector of the city. She would've liked for her friends to stay a bit longer, but, unlike her, they had midnight as a curfew.

As quietness crept into the apartment, Natalie finally realized the full enormity of the milestone she had just passed. She was now sixteen years old. In just under a year, she would be choosing the faction she would be staying in for the rest of her life. _What will I choose?_ Natalie looked around her apartment. Like the Pit outside, the walls were made of stone, though their lighter color didn't give the same sense of foreboding. The furniture was simple: a few chairs and tables, two sofas, and some usual appliances, all stocky and durable to withstand damage from spontaneous combat practice. With the light from the ceiling casting a soft yellow glow over everything, the apartment had the appearance of a cozy cave. _It's hard to imagine going anywhere else._

Now that the party was over, Natalie realized just how tired she was. She tried to pick up all the litter and toss it into the trash bin, but before she knew it she had collapsed onto the couch and fallen asleep.

Three hours later, the Dauntless girl woke to the sound of the front door being unlocked. Her mother, Ruth, came in first, dropping her handgun, flashlight, pocketknife, and clipboard onto a special shelf by the door. She sat down tiredly at the kitchen table, running her hands idly through her long hair. "Hey, sweetie."

Ottis Prior came in next, unloading his own weapons onto the shelf. He frowned when he caught sight of the living room. "Nat, how many times have I told you you've got to clean up after yourself if you're gonna throw all-nighters here?"

"Aw, c'mon, Dad," Natalie protested mildly. "Can't you gimme a break? This is the last birthday I'll be having here, after all."

"You're transferring?" asked Mrs. Prior, looking at her daughter in mock surprise. "After all these years of showing you all the secret hideouts in the Pit, you're ditching us for another faction?"

"Yeah, I think I'm going to be a banjo-strumming softie in Amity!" said Natalie sarcastically. The three of them laughed. "Of course I'm staying Dauntless. It's just, I'll be getting a place of my own after initiation, so it'll never be the same, ya know?"

"Oh alright, I suppose I could let it slide just this once," Ottis relented as he cleaned out the barrel of his gun. "But if you ever throw any wild parties in your new home, don't forget to invite your folks, okay?"

"If it's still going at three in the morning, sure," Natalie answered, shrugging.

Ruth made a scoffing sound and walked over to the couch. "With _that_ kind of gratitude, maybe I should give you your birthday gift next year," she teased.

Natalie knew the drill. Every year she begged for her present like a little kid, even though it seemed rather silly now. "Gimemememememmeemeeee!" she cried, jumping up and down in front of her mother.

But this year, instead of hurling the present into the air and shouting, "Catch!" Ruth waited silently until her daughter had calmed down. She then put her hands on Natalie's shoulders, looking directly into her eyes. _What's going on?_

"Now, Natalie, you will soon go through your Choosing Ceremony and then your initiation, at which point you will become an adult. As such, it's probably time I gave you the Prior family heirloom."

"Heirloom?" asked Natalie, surprised to see her mother looking so serious.

"It's tradition to give it to the oldest child in the family when he or she turns sixteen," Mr. Prior explained, shuffling closer to watch them.

Ruth Prior dropped her hands, reached into her pocket, and retrieved what looked like a silver key on a thin gold chain. "This is it. Nobody knows where this came from or what it opens. I know only one thing: you are the one who will figure out how to use it."

Natalie took the key and examined it critically. It was the same size and shape as a normal house key, except it was inscribed with one word on each side: "Prior" and "Ritter." On both sides, there was also some kind of symbol consisting of five concentric circles joined by eight line segments, like the spokes of a wheel. Random splotches covered the wheel, and two stalks of grain crossed below the whole thing.

"How do you know it's going to be me?" asked Natalie, feeling a curious sense of dread settle in her stomach. _What the heck is this, anyway?_

Ruth took hold of the chain of the key and showed her daughter a tiny gold rectangle attached to it. The words "For Generation 1" were etched into the panel. "Because," Ruth explained quietly, "everyone who inherits the key also inherits a number, which is one higher than their parent. My grandmother was -2. My father was -1. I am 0. Which means you, Natalie, are generation 1."

Natalie looked up at her mother, studying her face for hints that she might be lying. She found none. "I don't understand…" she mumbled, feeling her head ache from too many questions.

"Whoever started this system was very clever," said Ruth. "They didn't want their successor to ask too many questions, but they still needed a way to tell the right generation that the key was theirs to use. So they told their child the number, saying that they had inherited a lower number from their parent when they hadn't."

"So you mean, like, if _you_ made up the key thing, then you're telling me your parent was -1 when there never actually _was_ a -1."

"Correct," said Ruth, nodding. "Although I assure you I did in fact get this key from my father," she added hastily.

Natalie was silent for a moment, turning the key over and over in her hands. "I get why 'Prior' is stamped on here, but what the heck is 'Ritter'? And what is this circle thing? And how could anyone possibly predict the future?"

"Nobody knows," answered Mrs. Prior solemnly. "That information was lost generations ago. At any rate, never tell anybody outside the family about this key, understand? It has some sort of power that would be dangerous in the wrong hands."

Natalie shuddered under the weight of the burden that had just been passed to her. "How am I supposed to figure out how to use it if I know hardly anything about it?"

"That's for you to figure out, sweetie," smiled Ruth. "But a word of advice: generations of Priors have been going around the city, trying the key in every single lock they can find. My father claims that, between him and his mother, they tried every single non-dwelling keyhole in the city. So, I suggest you don't go poking around anymore. It isn't worth the risk."

The teenage girl nodded mutely, slipping the strange key around her neck and dropping it under her shirt. "So, I shouldn't worry too much about it?"

"Right," said Ruth, nodding approvingly. "Now go get some rest. Your father and I will clean up."

* * *

**Sheronnale Trivia #3!**

What is the design on Natalie's key? Hint: It's a logo used by a certain organization you've probably heard about. Winners get a cookie! (The answer WILL be revealed in the next chapter.)

**Read & review!**


	6. Shocking Revelations II

**Trivia #3 Answer:** I think the description I gave for the symbol on Natalie's key might have been too obscure, seeing as nobody submitted any guesses. Well, I promised to reveal the answer, so here it is: it's the logo of the United Nations. The splotches are the continents and the circles are the longitude and latitude lines of the globe. We'll see what the UN has to do with all of this very soon…

**A/N: Somehow, I got 3****rd**** place for Best Grammar and Spelling in Divergent Awards! A million thanks to whoever nominated and voted for me!**

**I apologize for not updating in three weeks; a lot of stuff came up that I had to deal with. Just so you know, I might be too busy to stick to my weekly update sometimes. But hang in there, I'll always come back. Like it says on my profile, I finish all my stories, whether it's in a week or ten years…**

* * *

_**July 10**_

_**Tori**_

_Choooooooooo!_ The kettle whistled and blew out jets of steam. Tori sprang to turn off the gas. When she turned back to the cutting board, however, the knife was gone.

"Rawr! Rawr!"

Tori spun around and spotted her brother behind her, brandishing the chopping knife with a look of glee on his face. "George, _give it back_," she warned him, gesturing frantically upstairs to where their mother was, hopefully, still asleep. For the past several years, Naomi Wu had been getting increasingly frequent migraines that left her dangerously crabby. Tori had since taken over most of the household chores. "How am I going to chop the cabbage if I don't have a knife?"

"I am a Dauntless guard! I will NEVER let you steal the Amity's cabbage, you factionless hobo!" George laughed and lunged towards his sister with the knife. Without thinking, Tori picked up a nearby meat cleaver and swung. _Clang!_ The knives clashed in midair.

The siblings paused for a moment, feeling the vibration of the impact move up their arms. Both knew they should've been frightened, but they felt a strange sense of elation instead.

"Hiya!" Tori suddenly jumped at her brother with the cleaver.

"YAH!" He blocked her blow with a frying pan.

Before they knew it, Tori and George were mock-dueling, using all manner of kitchen utensils as weapons. They moved in perfect harmony—brother and sister blocked blows from knives with well-placed pot lids or chopping boards seconds before they would've been impaled.

_I haven't felt this alive in years!_ thought Tori gleefully, ducking and twisting around her brother's attacks. George seemed to feel the same way. He laughed wildly as he attacked and counterattacked. Tables, chairs, plates…nothing escaped their roughhousing.

**BOOM!** The door banged open. The siblings froze and turned slowly towards the doorway.

"_**WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU WORTHLESS KIDS!**_" screamed a tousle-haired, red-eyed Naomi. "_**WHY CAN'T YOU GIVE A BREAK TO YOUR POOR MOTHER? ARE YOU TRYING TO DRIVE ME TO AN EARLY GRAVE?!**_"

Before Tori or George could utter a word, Mrs. Wu stumbled back up the stairs, slamming the door behind her. Tori glanced at her brother, feeling guilt and elation battle inside her. "I think we got a little too carried away, Georgie."

The young boy returned her gaze with a small glimmer in his eye. "Well, perhaps we should do our jousting outside from now on, Tor."

* * *

_**July 29**_

_**Jeanine**_

"Are you _sure_ this is going to work?" Andrew held Kyle Matthews's ancient security pass up to the sun, examining it with an extremely skeptical expression.

"Of course it will," snapped Jeanine, checking her own pass, which was labeled "Nora Matthews." "I found these passes in the attic. It's not like they've been subjected to demagnetization or abrasive surfaces."

"No, I mean, your parents have been dead for _eight years_. Don't you think the Erudite would've changed the security systems at least once by now?" asked Andrew incredulously.

She shrugged. "It's worth a try. The worst that could happen is that the system will send a message to my parents' now-defunct e-mail accounts telling them they need a new card."

Andrew looked nervously around at the large stone buildings of Erudite headquarters. "And what happens if we get caught?"

"Tell them we're ghosts," she replied sarcastically.

"I'm serious!"

_Why does he keep questioning me? _Jeanine thought, irritated. _Does Andrew think I'm stupid enough to not think through every single possibility before executing a plan?_ "I spent my childhood exploring Erudite headquarters, Andrew. I know more secret passageways than most people find in a lifetime."

"Okay," Andrew agreed reluctantly.

Jeanine pushed open the glass doors to one of the smaller buildings. By the looks of it, it had once been an assembly hall of sorts, for it had a raised platform at one end and tiered steps all the way to the door. Now, it was stacked to the ceiling with file cabinets, spare chairs, outdated computers, and old lab apparatus. _Good. Nobody will come through here._ She skirted the edge of the room and opened a side door at the far end. A glowing white hallway met her gaze, the kind that filled most of the Erudite buildings. Jeanine stopped and pressed her head against the wall, listening for the vibrations of distant footsteps. There was nobody within earshot.

When Andrew had picked his way through the maze of ancient equipment, she turned and strode quickly forward, turning down corridor after identical corridor. Had it not been for the sweeper-bots that periodically cleaned the whole building, Jeanine guessed the floor would've been covered with a thick carpet of dust by now. They were, after all, at the far reaches of the web of hallways that connected the headquarter buildings. Though the Erudite were curious by nature, the ones who did manage to wander down here found nothing of note and never bothered to come back. After about five minutes, Jeanine found the small door that led to the stairwell.

"Where exactly are we going?" Andrew demanded.

"To the basement," Jeanine replied, turning deftly down the concrete steps. "There are several banks of computers that link directly to the classified database, but this is the only one that's not regularly used. It serves as a back-up."

Jeanine vaguely wondered what would happen if someone got lost down here. For a moment, the ridiculous image of a skeleton collapsed against a wall appeared in her mind. _That's illogical,_ she told herself sternly. _They could simply follow the sweeper-bots out of here._ At long last, the descent ended in a set of heavy metal doors with some kind of electronic panel by the side of it.

"I never knew this place was so big!" wheezed Andrew. "Can we use the elevator next time?"

Jeanine ignored him and took out her mother's pass. "Let's hope this works." She swiped the silver rectangle across the electronic panel and waited. The panel flashed green and the thick doors slid open. _Hmm, whoever's in charge of security around here obviously isn't too bright._

"I can't believe that actually worked," marveled Andrew, peering at the vast room beyond. "Why are the walls made of concrete?"

"This part was built before the rest of the city, so it isn't as refined," said Jeanine knowledgeably, reveling in her triumph. "Now be careful, there's a sensor on the door to make sure only one person enters per swipe."

"You told me that already," Andrew scowled as she stepped over the threshold.

The computer lab was about twice the size of the assembly hall at school. Row upon row of box-shaped computers took up most of the space, all an identical silvery-blue. At the back, a shelf of giant black data servers stood like sentries against the wall.

"If any of Wyatt Matthews's files on Operation Convergence are still in existence, they'll be here," said Jeanine, grabbing the nearest computer. "Let's log on separately so we can cover more material." Her companion nodded and settled in the next row.

Within seconds, the Erudite girl had located the server with all of her grandfather's files. Leaning forward in anticipation, she clicked on the folder. A screen popped up: "Restricted Information. Password Required." _I was __**not**__ expecting that._

Jeanine groaned. "Why would anything be locked on these computers? It's already in a secure room, for goodness sakes!"

"Don't bother trying to use brute force or a hash algorithm to guess the password," Andrew suggested.

Jeanine was alarmed to find she had no idea what he was talking about. "_What?_"

"I suspect the passcode is extremely long," Andrew explained. "I'd try using nmap to run a port scan and figure out a point of entry."

_Right, I forgot he's obsessed with computers._ "Um, can you come over and help me log into the system?"

With a faintly surprised look, the Erudite boy took her keyboard and began typing in an intricate series of commands. Window after technicolor window appeared on the screen, which rapidly filled with hundreds of lines of code.

"Where did you learn to do that?!"

"What, you mean _this?_" Andrew nodded towards the screen. "That's basic hacking strategy, using buffer overflow to create a root account with super-user privileges…"

He proceeded to spout technical jargon that made absolutely no sense to her. "Stop," Jeanine groaned, feeling her head spin as she attempted to follow the ten-key sequence her friend was explaining. "Just…open the system for me."

Andrew gaped at her. "Jeanine, you taught yourself differential calculus in _third grade_, and you can't understand simple _bash scripting?!_"

"_Second_ grade," Jeanine corrected him through clenched teeth. "Are you _mocking_ me, Andrew?"

He didn't reply. At that moment, the layer of windows cleared away, revealing an "Access Granted" screen that was quickly replaced by a gigantic list of folders. "There you go."

Feeling slightly unsettled, Jeanine began sifting through her grandfather's long-lost records.

The first document was titled "Faction Experiment Locations" and contained a long list of strange words:

_Beijing, China_

_Bogotá, Colombia_

_Buenos Aires, Argentina_

_Cairo, Egypt_

_**Chicago, United States**_

_Delhi, India_

_Dhaka, Bangladesh_

_etc..._

Despite reading the whole list, Jeanine didn't recognize any of the words, nor could she figure out why "Chicago, United States" would be bolded. Frustrated, she moved on to the next document. This one proved more interesting: it appeared to describe a mission for some kind of secret agent. Included was a picture of a bony, angular man with short graying hair and dark gray eyes.

* * *

[Picture]

ID: 3479287057

Mission ID: 49680-349523750-AHFPBI

Full name: Avery Tyrone Maddox

Mission alias: Wyatt Matthews

Position: ICL Special Unit—Operation Convergence

DOB: 05/18/2170

Place of Birth: Toledo, OH, USA

Nationality: United States of America

Height: 6' 2"

Weight: 170 lb.

**Mission Abstract:** To infiltrate Faction Experiment YCG-38 [Chicago and Greater Area]. To detect presence of Divergence within test subjects in said faction experiment. To eliminate, with any means necessary, such individuals, as well as implement appropriate alterations within governing body in aforementioned experiment to hinder further appearances of Divergent…

* * *

It took Jeanine a full hour to read through the entire mission abstract. Though the document was filled with names and places she didn't recognize, Jeanine did understand enough to be deeply stunned.

_My grandfather_ **was**_ working for someone on the outside,_ she concluded, closing her eyes to allow her mind to grind through all of the information she had just absorbed. _Our city is part of some kind of twisted worldwide genetic experiment to produce a mutant kind of human, the Divergent. Wyatt was part of an organization that was trying to sneak in, kill off the Divergent, and reorganize the city so that they could never appear again. _

Jeanine had brought an external hard drive to copy the data, but as she scrolled through the thousands of files, she realized that her grandfather had pulled so much information from the Erudite databank into his folder that it would take many hard drives to hold it all. _I suppose I will have to resort to duplicating only the most critical pieces of information,_ she thought, greatly disappointed. To cheer herself up, Jeanine reminded herself, _You were right about Operation Convergence. It was for a good cause. Surely these files will be enough to make Andrew stop doubting the plan._

* * *

_**November 4**_

_**Natalie**_

_Rissmann. Ritchie. Ritson. Rivers._ Natalie glared at the space between "Ritson" and "Rivers," as though by staring hard enough she could magically make "Ritter" appear between them. Angrily, she slammed "Genealogy Across the 5 Factions" shut and stuck it back on the shelf. _Who or what was this Ritter and why isn't he or she or it in any of the reference books?_ Not even the sources suggested by the school librarian had been of any use. _Not that she would know much about this sort of thing. She's just an Abnegation volunteer,_ Natalie mused. If months and months of searching had turned up nothing, it was time for desperate measures: ask one of the Erudite. _Let's see if they really do know everything._

She scanned the library for someone to ask, immediately ruling out the large groups clustered at the tables. In a far corner of the library, she spotted a lone boy slowly surveying the shelves. Making sure none of her Dauntless buddies were there to see her actually asking an Erudite for information, she walked over to him.

"Excuse me," she said softly, tapping the boy on the shoulder.

He turned quickly around, startled. The boy had tousled black hair and a hooked nose and seemed vaguely familiar. "Y-yes?" he stammered, his cheeks turning red.

_Poor thing. He's probably freaked out because he's grown up hearing that the Dauntless stab people for fun or something,_ Natalie thought sadly. In as soothing a tone as she could muster, she asked, "You're Erudite, right? Do you know any good reference books for historical figures, or maybe family records, that sort of thing? I, um, need to write a school paper for a certain person and I can't seem to find their name anywhere."

The boy thought for a minute. "Hmm…for biographical stuff I would normally use the Milligan's Directory, but if it's a specific family line you're searching for…if you told me the name of the person, I might be able to give you better suggestions."

Natalie hesitated, looking behind her towards the other people in the library. If "Ritter" was somehow bad, the last thing she wanted was for some Erudite to figure out that she had some kind of connection to it. On the other hand, maybe this sense of caution is what stopped her ancestors from solving the mystery. "Alright," she decided, "I need info on someone called…Ritter."

"Is that a given name or a surname?" asked the boy dazedly. "And was the person a man or a woman?"

"I think it's a last name," answered Natalie, "But I have no idea whether that was a man or a woman." Seeing the confused expression on his face, she added hastily, "I guess I wasn't paying enough attention in class."

"I'm sorry," the Erudite apologized, looking genuinely distressed. "I've never heard of a Ritter. Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

Natalie sighed, feeling the key around her neck grow heavier with the unsolved mystery. "It's okay, never mind."

The boy looked as though he were about to say something more, but he evidently thought better of it. Natalie turned and walked out of the library. She was halfway down the hall when she realized why the boy looked familiar: he and another blond Erudite girl were known collectively among the Dauntless as the "Freak Duo" for the extraordinary number of science fairs and academic competitions they had won as a team. _I don't think he's a freak though,_ Natalie decided. _In fact, he seemed pretty nice._

* * *

_**December 12**_

_**Evelyn**_

Evelyn slammed the door to an empty classroom shut behind her and sank to the floor, allowing the sobs to overtake her.

_Why, why, why can't they pick on somebody else for once?_ she screamed in her head. _Am I really so worthless that everyone has to attack me wherever I go?_ Not for the first time, Evelyn wished Zachary weren't factionless. He protected and comforted her during her walks home, but at school, there was nobody to defend her.

"Are you okay?" asked a voice.

Evelyn whirled around. In her haste to find shelter, she hadn't realized that the room was already occupied. A girl and boy about her age sat on adjacent desks. Evelyn caught a glimpse of what looked like red welts on the boy's arm before he hastily rolled down his sleeve to cover it.

_Drat._ Evelyn quickly opened the door again, wondering if there were any empty rooms down in the history wing.

"Hey, wait, don't leave!" the girl called after her. She slid off the table and caught Evelyn by the arm. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

"Leave me alone!" Evelyn wailed, twisting out of her reach. _Why do I always run into people at the worst possible times?_

The boy hopped off the table and joined the girl while Evelyn peered down the hall. "Say," he remarked after a few seconds, "aren't you that Evelyn that the Erudite are always teasing for her horrible test scores?"

"_Marcus!_" hissed the girl. "Do you _always_ have to be so insensitive?"

"What? I was just asking…"

Evelyn let the door slam shut again when she spotted a few Dauntless prowling the school corridors. _Great. Now I'm stuck in here with these two morons. _"So what if I am?!" she spat, feeling fresh tears well up in her eyes. "I'm stupid, okay? There, I said it! Laugh if you want. I don't care anymore!" Evelyn clenched her fists and waited for the jeering to start. Instead, the girl winced in sympathy, while the boy nodded as though he had finally solved a mystery.

"We would never laugh at you," said the girl firmly. "That's horrible of the Erudite to insult you like that. I didn't know they were so depraved they would turn against one of their own members!"

"Johanna, Johanna, Johanna. When will you learn that not everyone is a good little angel like they told us in preschool?" chided Marcus.

"I'm Candor," the one called Johanna retorted. "Nobody tells us lies like that. I just believe that people are born good, not bad."

"Agh! Never mind." The boy shuddered and turned to Evelyn. "But anyways, my friend's telling the truth. We have no reason to make fun of you. We're outcasts, too, sort of."

Evelyn looked back and forth between Johanna and Marcus. Were they trying to lure her into some kind of trap? It wouldn't be the first time something like that had happened to her. _They don't look like the bullying type, though,_ she observed, noting Johanna's kind smile and Marcus's Abnegation clothes. Among the many survival skills Evelyn had developed over the years, one of the most critical was detecting potential aggressors. "Well, then, don't go telling those arrogant eggheads I've been hiding here, okay?"

"Why would we do that?" Johanna seemed genuinely confused. "We don't like the Erudite any more than you do."

"In fact, _I_ probably hate them more," said Marcus grimly. "At any rate, it's nice to hear an Erudite insult her own faction from the inside. Thank you."

"I'm _not_ Erudite!" snapped Evelyn. "Somebody up there made a horrible mistake by dropping me here, and I as sure as heck am going to correct that in June!"

"So, where are you going, then?" asked the Candor girl curiously. "Candor, Abnegation, Dauntless, or Amity?"

"Amity or Abnegation," Evelyn answered automatically. "I haven't decided which one, though." _Gosh, I only have half a year left to think about it._

The Abnegation boy looked up quickly. "You should join Abnegation. That's where the decent people are."

Johanna looked at him strangely. "You still think that after…?"

"He may be crazy, but I've come to see that his beliefs are actually correct," Marcus muttered to her in an undertone.

_Who's crazy?_ Evelyn wondered.

"Anyway," Marcus continued, "If you really are anti-Erudite, Abnegation's the place to be. Amity's _way_ too close to them."

"Hold on a second," interjected the Candor. "Amity's a perfectly fine faction! You can't say it's bad just because it's friendly with the Erudite!"

"Of course I can say that! Those who associate with evil are evil themselves!"

"Come on, not _all_ Erudite are so nasty…"

Sensing an unpleasant argument brewing, Evelyn quickly checked the hallway again. _All clear._ "Well, that's interesting, but I think I'll go now."

Marcus and Johanna stopped midsentence and looked at her. "You sure you're okay?" asked Johanna worriedly.

"Yes, yes," said Evelyn hurriedly, longing for the comforts of isolation.

"Well, think about what I said!" Marcus called after her.

_What weird people,_ thought Evelyn as she scurried towards one of her other hiding places. _Still, maybe one of them has a point. But which one?_

* * *

_**December 19**_

_**Andrew**_

Silence. Andrew sat alone in front of the computer, deep underground within Erudite headquarters. Months of hearing Jeanine's never-ending lectures about the virtues of Operation Convergence had taught him that he needed to work alone if he wanted to think straight. Strangely enough, despite Jeanine's prodigious brainpower, she was terrible at hacking through firewalls and needed to drag Andrew along every time they came here in order to access the database.

_But I'm perfectly capable of doing research by myself, so long as I have the security pass,_ thought Andrew as he prepared for another long session of data sifting. The more he learned about Operation Convergence, the more sinister-looking it became. While Jeanine had spent hours combing through her grandfather's files, Andrew had used the time to look at old newspaper archives and more general sources about precisely why the factions had been formed. The information he had dug up was quite alarming.

From what Andrew had been able to figure out, things had happened like this: about 200 years ago, there were billions and billions of people in the world. These people lived all over the Earth, divided into large organizations called "countries" or "nations." These countries were huge—each contained thousands of cities like the one he lived in now. Representatives from each of the countries were part of a system called the "United Nations," which met periodically to decide on global issues. During the 2050's, the UN was forced to place a limit on the amount of natural resources each country could use in response to rapidly diminishing supplies, sparking global protests. An informal coalition, known as the International Convergence Legion, or ICL, was promptly formed to fight the new measures. Including over a billion members worldwide from all walks of life, the ICL smuggled precious oil and coal from secret reserves and sold them on the black market. Before long, this activity had gotten so out of hand that the UN was forced to mobilize its troops, leading to a 21-year-long war that devastated virtually every corner of the world. All rules went out the window. The years 2065 to 2086 saw a constant shower of nuclear bombs, super-viruses, nano-killers, and other Weapons of Mass Destruction scattered across the globe. As time passed, a strange brand of insanity formerly unknown to mankind took over, so that what began as a struggle for resources soon spiraled into an all-out quest for world domination.

After more than two decades, when nearly three-quarters of the world's population had been wiped out, the battered and greatly weakened ICL was forced to surrender to the UN. Recognizing that a widespread gene causing rigid-mindedness was the root cause of the chaotic power struggle, the UN isolated the most flexible-minded individuals among the remaining population and sealed them in former major cities on every continent. The goal behind this genetic experiment was to produce a population completely free of the rigidity gene, called "Divergent." Theoretically, such people would be capable of reforming society for the better. The city in which they were living was apparently one such isolated habitat.

"Obviously, the ICL wasn't really disbanded, though," Andrew muttered to himself as he brought up Wyatt Matthews's mission profile. Wherever the ICL was hiding now, they were still sending in secret agents to the faction cities, hoping to terminate the Divergent and convert the people into anti-UN militia. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Operation Convergence was the code name of one such plan. Disturbingly, Andrew's own family, the Carrs, had been planted by the ICL in the very beginning and tasked with halting the growth of the Divergent. Somewhere along the line, though, the details of their mission had been lost.

Andrew sat staring at the blank search bar, wondering what aspect of the faction experiment he should research next. _There's really not that much left to know,_ he realized. _There are thousands upon thousands of pages of specifications, but I've seen all the general plans. Now, the question comes down to whether the Divergent are actually evil mutants, as my parents and the Matthews family think, or saviors of the world, as the United Nations believed._ Andrew pondered the idea but came up with no fresh revelations.

As often happened in such situations, his mind wandered back to the day in the library when the pretty Dauntless girl had asked him about the strange "Ritter." Not for the first time, Andrew wondered if it had been a dream. _No, it couldn't have been. I remember everything that happened before and after perfectly._ He felt rather depressed that he'd been unable to help her. Without meaning to, Andrew typed "Ritter" into the search bar and hit "enter."

To his shock, the search turned up about a hundred results, all connected to the name "Amanda." Most included her only as one entry in a gigantic list of other bizarre names, but there were several documents that appeared to be biographies and personal profiles of her, along with a video file. Andrew eagerly clicked on the video file.

A window opened showing a young woman with chin-length auburn hair sitting in a dark room. "Hello," she began, her voice warm and strong. "My name is Amanda Ritter. In this file I will tell you only what you need to know…"

* * *

**The plot thickens.**

**R&R!**


	7. Changing Allies I: 2251, Age 16

**Warning:** Some violence ahead.

* * *

**YEAR 2251: AGE 16**

_**January 27**_

_**Natalie**_

The bell rang for recess. Natalie sprinted outside to the frigid playground, laughing as her feet sank into the fresh snow. _Nobody likes the first day of school after winter break, but at least there's always a huge pile of snow waiting for us._ She twirled and fell backwards into a particularly puffy pile. C_runch!_ The sky, marvelously cloud-free, seem to mirror her smile.

When the iciness began seeping through to her skin, Natalie pulled herself to her feet and wandered over to the swings. Before she could sit down, however, somebody tapped her on the back. She whirled around, expecting to see her Dauntless friends. Instead, it was the Erudite boy she had asked for help in the library a couple months ago.

"Listen," he said, his voice muffled by the thick hood of his jacket. "I've been looking into that Ritter you asked me about and I found out some very strange things. How did you hear about her?"

_Darn it!_ Natalie cursed internally. _I __**knew**__ I shouldn't have asked someone else about this!_ Still, the boy's statement sparked her curiosity. Putting on her best nonchalant smile, she replied, "Oh, I needed it for a school project, remember? Don't worry, I got my teacher to assign me an easier person to research, though could you tell me what you learned about this Ritter anyways?"

The boy shook his head. "No, you can't possibly have heard about this person at school. I'll tell you what I know if you tell me where you heard it."

Natalie groaned. _Never tell anybody outside the family about the key,_ her mother had warned her. And she had to be her usual disobedient self. "I…I really can't tell you," she muttered apologetically. "Besides, I hardly see how that makes a differe—"

"It makes _all_ the difference," interrupted the boy. His eyes looked strangely panicked. "I need to know if you came across the word randomly or if you actually know something. If you're not going to tell me, I can't disclose any information."

The Dauntless hesitated. _You really do need to solve the mystery behind this key, since you'll need to use it someday,_ said a voice in her head. _And it's unlikely you'll figure it out on your own if none of your ancestors could._

_But the key is supposed to be a family secret!_ countered a second voice in her head. _You can't just go telling strangers all about it!_

_He already knows the information, so what harm will it do to show him the key?_

_Because he might go telling everyone…_

"Agh! Screw it all!" Natalie burst out suddenly, cutting off the internal argument raging in her head. "I might as well tell you. But you must promise never, _ever_ to tell anybody else what I'm about to say to you, okay?"

"Of course not," replied the boy, watching in anticipation as Natalie pulled the silver key out of her pocket.

Natalie clenched the key in her palm a moment, studying the Erudite's face to see if his promise was sincere. "Not even your parents?"

"I never tell them anything anyways."

"Or best friends?"

The boy shrugged. "Don't have any."

"Okay," Natalie agreed at last. She unclenched her palm. "When I turned sixteen last July, I inherited this key. It's been in our family for generations, though nobody has any idea what it's for. My mother said it was my destiny to figure out how to use it. Now, see this side here, where it says 'Ritter'? That's why I was asking about it. Nobody in my family seems to know what it means."

The boy gingerly took the key in his hands and examined it closely. When he turned it over and saw the word "Prior," he jumped a little and stared at Natalie with a mixture of awe and fear. "Wh-who exactly _are_ you?"

"I'm Natalie Prior," she answered nervously. "That key is the Prior family heirloom, so I see why _that's_ carved on there. But I don't get the deal with 'Ritter.'"

The boy looked too stunned by her response to reply. _He had better not be pulling my leg, because that will not end well._ She prodded him gently. "What's _your_ name?"

"A-Andrew Carr…"

"Well, Andrew, are you going to tell me about this Ritter or not?" demanded Natalie impatiently.

"Wha-oh, hmm, how should I explain this…" the boy leaned against the bars of the swing set, rubbing his chin contemplatively. "You know there was this massive war before the factions were created, right?"

Natalie frowned, vaguely recalling some mention of an event like that from Faction History. "Yeah, I think it was a few decades back."

"About 174 years ago, actually," Andrew corrected her. "Anyways, the factions within our city were created in order to prevent such large-scale warfare from happening again. The initial inhabitants of this place voluntarily put aside all their memories of the outside world in the hopes that future generations would never know of violence. One of the first inhabitants was a woman originally called Amanda Ritter, who later changed her name to Edith Prior. I didn't find any mention of a key connected to her, but it's likely she was the one who forged it. There is a very high probability that you are her descendant."

"How did you dig up all of this?" asked Natalie in amazement. "I swear I searched _everywhere_ for that name, but I never found anything!"

"Um, you'd be surprised what's stored in the Erudite databases," Andrew replied hesitantly. "If you know what you're looking for, it's got the answers to almost everything."

"Thank you so much!" Natalie cried, jumping up and down excitedly. "Do you reckon there's information in there about what this thing actually opens?"

The Erudite boy nodded, looking simultaneously eager and nervous. "There probably is. I'll do a search and get back to you on this, okay?"

"Awesome!" Natalie smiled. _Finally,_ _I'm getting somewhere._

* * *

_**February 2**_

_**Marcus**_

"For goodness sakes, Johanna, do you go around _collecting_ people in distress?" Marcus protested as his friend sat down at the cafeteria table with Evelyn in tow.

Johanna shrugged and motioned for the girl to sit down. "They were picking on her again, so I thought I'd invite her over to join us."

Marcus groaned. Sometimes Johanna was far too nice for her own good. Ironically, it was because of this kindness that she had no friends in Candor.

"It's okay, I can manage on my own," said Evelyn resignedly, seeing his irritated expression. "I didn't mean to bother you."

"Nonsense," snorted Johanna. "You're no trouble at all." Evelyn smiled gratefully and slid in next to the Candor across from Marcus.

"Say," said Marcus suddenly, remembering their previous conversation, "have you decided whether you're going to Abnegation or Amity yet, Evelyn?"

She tilted her head contemplatively. "I'm not sure, but Johanna's been telling me all sorts of interesting stuff about Amity. It sounds like a nice place."

Marcus nearly choked on his soda. "Johanna! Is it not enough that I have to hear you rambling on and on about Amity's virtues all day long? Do you have to brainwash the rest of the population too?"

The Candor laughed and twirled her spaghetti around her fork. "As though _you_ don't make long speeches about why Abnegation is the best."

He folded his arms. "My arguments actually make _sense_, whereas _you_ are just blindly worshipping a bunch of banjo-strumming lunatics!"

Johanna rolled her eyes and stood up. "_Here we go again_. Evelyn, do try to stay alive for the next few minutes while I go get a bag of chips. You'll find that plugging your ears delays the mind-numbing effects of his words somewhat."

She turned and headed towards the lunch line as Marcus scowled behind her back. _Why can't Johanna see that Abnegation is where all the important stuff actually happens? Let's see if this Evelyn is a bit more sensible._ "You know, Amity's not as wonderful as Johanna makes it sound," he told her. "She gets a little…_overenthusiastic_ about certain things."

Evelyn looked up curiously. "I can see the overenthusiasm, but what's not to like about Amity?"

"Well, for one thing," said Marcus in a low voice, "they don't tolerate unhappiness for any reason. It doesn't matter if you just broke your leg or your cousin died or whatever. You're supposed to wear a smile and be _ami_able all the time." _Well, that's not strictly true, but the more Erudite-haters I convert to Abnegation, the better the chance I'll be able to do something bad to Erudite someday._

Evelyn's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yes," he said, careful to maintain steady eye contact. "Besides, the Amity are cowards. They don't really prevent conflict; they run from it. The Abnegation, on the other hand, genuinely want to help those in need. I'm sure you've witnessed that?"

Judging by the way Evelyn nodded, Marcus could tell he had struck a chord. _Just keep pushing it._ "You know, the people in Abnegation are like one big family. Everyone looks after everyone else, and nobody is ever unkind. It simply isn't allowed. I think you would have a wonderful time there."

Evelyn hesitated. "But doesn't life get dull in Abnegation?"

He shook his head. "That's what everybody thinks, but it's not true. Sure, we don't have possessions, but we are actually far more content than the other factions. Helping others gives you a sense of self-fulfillment none of the other factions can understand." Marcus paused a moment to let her absorb his statement. "The Amity _look_ happy, but it's really more of an empty idleness. The Erudite, by their own faction manifesto, can never feel satisfied so long as there are mysteries left in the world. The Dauntless, well, they're happy when they're drunk, I guess, but they've got to constantly worry about someone jumping out at them with a gun. And, obviously, the Candor will argue the living daylights out of anyone, which I don't think is a good recipe for living a joyful life."

"I don't know," said Evelyn doubtfully. "Everyone seems to think the Abnegation are idiots for being so selfless. No offense to you, of course," she added quickly.

_Sheesh, why does everyone think the Abnegation are wimps? _Marcus wondered. _They're hopelessly deluded._ Thinking fast, he said, "Evelyn, you hate Erudite, don't you?"

"Of course," she asserted. "They're the most vicious faction of the lot."

_Should I trust her with my speculations?_ In the past few years, Marcus had gradually started to blame the Erudite for the physical abuse he endured. After all, it was Richard's death that had driven Mr. Eaton somewhat insane. To take revenge, though, Marcus needed to gather an army. Could Evelyn aid his cause? She had a quiet, pensive air about her, but her black eyes sparked with anger whenever her faction was mentioned. _Hates Erudite, but has no mind of her own. Excellent._ "Well, out of all the factions, Abnegation is most opposed to Erudite. Not directly, of course, because that's not in our nature. But we strongly despise them for their selfishness, and because we control the government, we can keep them under control."

"I never thought about it like that," Evelyn admitted. "I didn't know the Abnegation could even dislike anyone. Interesting…"

"See?" asked Marcus eagerly. "There's more to them than gray blandness. They're the bane of that greedy eyeball faction."

"But just because I hate Erudite doesn't mean I should join your faction, though," the girl pointed out. "There are some classmates of mine I wouldn't mind giving a good kick, but I'm not actively seeking vengeance. And I really don't think I could live in Abnegation without going crazy."

Marcus groaned. _Why does everyone overlook Abnegation's importance? At this rate, I'll never be able to avenge my brother._ "Perhaps, but you really don't want to be going to Amity. The Erudite visit them all the time to give them tree enhancing powders or whatever nonsense they come up with. Besides, they're all super talkative, so a shy person like you would have a terrible time there."

"I don't know, I don't think I'm anywhere near selfless enough," Evelyn explained, distressed.

"Selfless enough for what?" interrupted Johanna, who had returned with some chips.

"Abnegation," Evelyn answered. "Your friend here was trying to convince me to join them."

Johanna looked at Marcus. "And what were you saying about me and my Amity propaganda?"

"I thought Evelyn should hear the philosophies of both sides before making any decisions," he replied coolly. "After all, it's just fair, isn't it?"

* * *

_**April 18**_

_**Andrew**_

"Still no luck?"

Andrew looked around the public library to make sure nobody was listening to them—the carpet floors here made it relatively easy for potential eavesdropper to sneak up on them. "No. Nothing," he answered. "I'm sorry, but if I haven't found something by now, I don't think there's anything."

Natalie looked puzzled. "But surely if they've got such specific details on Edith, there would be some mention of the key?"

"Perhaps it was solely her own creation and was never documented," guessed the Erudite boy. "But it does make me wonder…"

"Wonder what?" asked Natalie, gazing intently at him.

Andrew teetered on the verge of speech. For the past few weeks, he had been wondering whether to tell Natalie about Operation Convergence. A bit of digging around in the secret Erudite database had revealed that Amanda Ritter was one of the key organizers of the faction project; he felt it was only right that her descendant should know if someone was trying to destroy it.

_What should I do? _Andrew was desperate for somebody to talk to, to confirm his growing belief that Operation Convergence was downright evil. _But the only three other people in the world who know about it are all crazy. My parents believe in Convergence so strongly they willingly murdered for it. And, if possible, Jeanine seems even more enthusiastic about it than either of them._ This last part shocked him the most. Though the knowledge that his own parents were serial killers was sickening, Andrew so rarely saw them that he realized they could conceivably be doing anything while they were "at work in Erudite headquarters." But never had he witnessed Jeanine latch so strongly to any idea. A terrifyingly cold determination seemed to have taken hold of her, driving out all other thought. Week after week she dragged Andrew down to the computer lab to help her gather data. She checked every detail of Convergence for flaws, updated obsolete maps, and even added formulations of her own. When Andrew tried to get her to see the immorality of it all, she grew increasingly annoyed. They had begun arguing about their differing views a few weeks back, and at one point Andrew was positive that if Jeanine had not needed him to access the database, she would've pushed him off a high building. How could it be that he no longer recognized the person who had been his only friend for nearly a decade?

_I need to tell someone __**sane**__ about Operation Convergence, and there is no one else to turn to but Natalie._

"Hey, Natalie," he began nervously. "I think Edith Prior might have been involved in some…larger plan."

The Dauntless girl widened her eyes in surprise. "What do you mean?"

Andrew took a deep breath to clear his jumbled thoughts. "Well, you see, after last year's Choosing Ceremony, my parents told me the strangest thing…"

* * *

An hour later, Natalie clutched her head as she struggled to comprehend the mind-boggling ideas Andrew had just finished explaining. "Wait a sec…so you're saying we're supposed to _leave_ this place someday?"

Andrew nodded. "Yes, as soon as there are enough of the Divergent. Interestingly, our generation has been marked as 'Generation 1,' because we are supposed to be the first generation to have a significant proportion of Divergent. In fact, we are due to leave in thirty years or so."

"And you think me being '1' has something to do with that?" asked Natalie, looking simultaneously doubtful and excited.

"It's likely," he answered.

"But you still have no idea what exactly I'm supposed to _do _with the key?"

"No, I'm sorry. But I bet it has to do with something outside the fence."

Natalie looked disappointed. "Hmm…maybe I'll just have to wait and see, then. And this freaky Jeanine girl…have I seen her before?"

Andrew thought about this for a moment. "I'm not sure how much attention you Dauntless pay to us, but you've definitely passed the two of us in the hallway while we were talking."

"You remember seeing me pass by even though we didn't know each other back then?!" demanded Natalie incredulously.

He blushed. "Um…well, I'm Erudite, so I'm supposed to notice things, right?"

Thankfully, Natalie appeared to be deep in thought and hadn't registered his comment. "Wait a sec…you said her parents made her super smart, right?"

"Unfortunately so," sighed Andrew.

"And she's become a sadistic monster?"

"I couldn't have found a better adjective."

Natalie's eyes widened in alarm. "Oh my god. Please tell me I'm wrong."

"What?" Andrew felt his stomach clench.

"Jeanine's siblings died, so _that_ part of Convergence failed," said the Dauntless girl, frowning in concentration. "But _she's_ still alive. What's to prevent her from becoming the leader of Erudite and carrying out the whole plan in the future?"

"Well, because…" Andrew struggled to find a hole in her reasoning, but could not. _How did I not think of that?_ "Oh, no. You're right. The only way she could be ousted out of the position is if she dies before the current leader retires. Or if somebody turns up who has an even higher IQ than her." Even as he said it, Andrew knew that neither of those things was likely to happen.

They fell silent as they contemplated the full horror of this realization.

"What about you?" asked the Dauntless girl after a moment. "You seem pretty smart to me."

_That's an intriguing thought,_ Andrew reflected, but quickly dismissed the idea. "No," he said, shaking his head firmly. "I'm not being modest here, I'm nowhere near as intelligent as Jeanine. I may be able to comprehend most of what she's saying, but there's no way in a million years I could beat her on an IQ test."

"Is there anybody else who could?" she asked anxiously.

"Nobody at school that I know of. And if there are any such adults, they'll probably be too old when it's time to choose the next leader," he answered solemnly.

Natalie clutched the edge of the table. "This is bad. This is really, really bad."

Despite the seriousness of their new discovery, the Erudite felt a strange sense of relief. "So, Natalie, you think Operation Convergence is evil too, right? I'm not insane?"

"It's beyond evil!" she cried vehemently. "It's so wrong I don't even know what to call it! How can _anyone_ support it?"

_Thank goodness. It's my parents and Jeanine who are in the wrong, not me. _Andrew felt a huge burden of guilt lift from his body, only to be replaced by an equally heavy weight of confusion and terror. "If Jeanine becomes leader, she will have all the time, ingenuity, and inventions of every single member of Erudite at her disposal. She could easily complete what her grandfather started with almost no resistance. Nobody will even know what's going on!"

Natalie clenched her fists. "Then we need to tell everybody in the city about this!"

For a moment, he was tempted to agree with her, but then his senses caught up to him. "No, we can't. Nobody would believe us because nobody would understand the data. And besides-"

"_I_ believed you," Natalie pointed out.

"That's because you had the Prior key! And besides," he continued, "it's too early for people to see the Ritter files. We don't have enough Divergent yet. An early disclosure could ruin everything."

"Well, then, we've got to fight against it ourselves," she said matter-of-factly.

Andrew hesitated. He had been so eager for someone to understand, but still… "I'm telling you about Convergence because I didn't know what to think of it, and I needed another perspective," he explained carefully. "For you, siding against it is a no-brainer. But you've got to understand, I'm in a totally different situation here. The ones running Operation Convergence are my own _parents_. I may not agree with them anymore, but I can't just…wage war on them or something." He looked Natalie in the eye, pleading with her to understand his dilemma. _I'm not one of them, but I'm not prepared to go against them. Not yet._

He had expected the Dauntless girl to tell him how ridiculous it was to cling to family ties, how he should think of them as criminals and nothing else. Instead, she patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. "That's alright, I get it. I'm surprised you even let me in on this."

In a split second, Andrew felt his brain go to mush again. "I…well, that is…um…"

"Well, I've got to go," said Natalie, checking her watch. "Can we meet here tomorrow? I have about a billion questions, but I promised my mother I'd be at target practice at six."

"Of course," Andrew nodded as they stood up and walked out of the library. "Just please don't tell anybody about Operation Convergence, okay?"

"I won't," Natalie promised with a smile. "Bye!"

"See you." As Andrew watched the Dauntless girl sprint down the pavement to catch a train, his mind questioned the logic of telling her about such sensitive information. But in his heart, he knew he'd done the right thing.

* * *

_**April 29**_

_**Jeanine**_

Jeanine stood against the back wall of her parents' former study, trying to memorize the positions of the dizzying arrays of charts, maps, diagrams, and lists she had tacked to the wall. Over the past few months, she had assembled so much data about Operation Convergence that it had filled up almost every single surface in the house. Once every three months, she had been forced to take it all down and hide it when the old Erudite woman who had been assigned to be her "guardian" came around to check in on her.

_As though I haven't been taking care of myself since I was seven,_ Jeanine thought resentfully as she began pulling tacks off the wall. _At least this is the last time. Soon, I'll go through initiation and finally become an adult. _Ever since she was young, Jeanine had had an irrepressible urge to figure things out and make plans. Whatever she did, though, always felt too trivial to be of use. Thus, she conducted countless experiments and invented hundreds of gadgets semi-randomly, losing interest in them as soon as they were completed. Now, with Operation Convergence, Jeanine had finally found her purpose in life.

As she stacked a series of graphs together, she realized that she had forgotten to get a copy of the population counts before the war. "Darn it," she muttered, picking up her phone. "Why couldn't my grandfather have organized his files more efficiently?"

She punched in Andrew's cell phone number and waited. On the twelfth ring, he finally picked up. "Hey, listen," she said quickly, "I need file A-28471 from the database. Do you think you can go down there and retrieve it for me? I would go too, since there are some other remote sensing quanta I'd like to examine, but the inspector is stopping by in two hours. So could you just fax me the file?"

There was a pause at the other end of the line. "I can't," said Andrew at last. "I've, er, been grounded for not doing my chores."

Jeanine listened suspiciously to the background noise on the other end of the line. "I can hear car horns and a girl talking in the background who is definitely not your mother."

"That's the TV," Andrew answered bluntly. "I need to go. My dad's coming and I'm not supposed to be on the phone."

Before she could react, the line clicked dead. "**DO YOU THINK I'M AN IDIOT?!**" she screamed, throwing the phone back onto its cradle in disgust. "WHAT ERUDITE ON EARTH DOESN'T HAVE A HOUSE-CLEANING UNIT THAT DOES THE CHORES?!" _And that was no random girl in a movie. That was Natalie Prior!_

Jeanine paced around the study, seething with rage. Something wasn't adding up; why was Andrew suddenly making wild excuses to avoid Operation Convergence? And why had he suddenly become so attached to a total stranger from another faction?

_Unless they are plotting something behind my back._ She stopped dead in her tracks, feeling a shiver of dread go down her spine. _That's the only logical explanation for Andrew's aberrant behavior,_ Jeanine realized._ But why is he working with Natalie Prior, of all people? Does she know something too? __**I need to get to the bottom of this.**_

* * *

_**May 7**_

_**Johanna**_

"You _TOLD_ her about the _WHOLE PLAN?!_"

"It's none of your business. Leave me alone."

"I'm not going to! Not until I know whether you're in agreement with Convergence or not!"

"We're against it. Now shut up and get out of the way!"

Johanna had been ambling through the streets—her father had finally deemed her old enough to explore the city on her own—when she heard angry voices echoing out of a narrow alley. Peering in, she saw three figures engaged in a heated argument. Vaguely, she recognized them Andrew, Natalie, and Jeanine. _That's an odd combination,_ thought Johanna. _I wonder what they're yelling about._ She inched forward to listen.

"I can't let you go running around the city telling everyone about this!" snapped Jeanine. "You know too much!"

"Why can't you just accept that your grandfather was wrong?" Andrew cried. "The factions were made for a purpose, a good one, and Operation Convergence is going to destroy it!"

Jeanine grimaced. "How many times do I need to tell you this? The Divergent are mutants! They understand nothing about advancement of society and want to trap us all in a communist sinkhole!"

"That's not true!" Natalie growled. "Your ancestors reduced the world to total chaos! The Divergent are our only hope of survival!"

"I wouldn't expect a dull Dauntless such as you to understand the full complexity of the situation," the Erudite girl scoffed, "but _you_, Andrew, surely you can see the logic in all of this? Everybody nice and uniform in their own factions, with the intellectuals in control?"

Behind a trash bin, Johanna gasped. _What's going on here?_

"And then what?" demanded Andrew. "Be enslaved to the ICL when they come recruiting for soldiers?"

"The worthless will be," Jeanine nodded, as though he had finally said something right. "But the Erudite at least will be put in charge of a new world. Why are you against this?"

"You're crazy!" Andrew retorted. "Absolutely, positively off you rocker! How can you possibly be so selfish? And there will be no world to rule if the ICL takes over, don't you get it? It only destroys, not creates!"

There was a pause as Jeanine tilted her head to consider his statement. "I'm sorry to hear you say that, Andrew," she said at last. "Since you and Natalie know all the critical information and plan to oppose it, you, like the Divergent, are a significant threat to Operation Convergence. You leave me no choice but to eliminate both of you."

Jeanine pulled the silver clip out of her hair and pressed a series of buttons on its side. Johanna watched in horror as the clip sprouted spikes. _What is she going to do with that? _

Natalie drew a knife from her belt. "Don't even _think_ about it, you freak! I have been trained in combat from birth. If you don't get out of the way in five seconds, you'll be sorry!"

"Jeanine, just leave us alone!" Andrew cried, looking from the knife to the spiked contraption in horror. "What does it matter what two sixteen-year-olds know?"

Jeanine ignored his plea and flicked a switch on her gadget. It lit up, ominously blue, and began to make a faint whirring sound. "Do you know what this is capable of, you foolish Dauntless? Do you know what will happen to you if you get hit by it?"

Natalie gritted her teeth. "Five…"

Johanna studied their expressions with her Candor-trained senses. Andrew was pale with terror. _He's scared of violence and wants to get out of here._ Natalie clutched her knife, looking both angry and desperate. _Despite all her bravado, she knows she doesn't stand much of a chance against that gadget, but she's going to try anyway._ Jeanine studied her opponents with a calculating expression, aiming her weapon coolly at them. _And this one will stop at nothing to destroy them._

"Four…"

_Neither girl is going to back down,_ Johanna concluded. _Should I run and get help?_

"Three…"

_No,_ she decided. _Somebody might be dead by then. Should I jump in and break up the fight?_

"Two…"

_That would be stupid in the extreme, given how angry they are_, Johanna told herself._ But I can't let someone be killed right in front of me!_

"One…"

Johanna took a deep breath and plunged into the alley before she could change her mind. "Stop this fighting, both of you!" she shouted, jumping between Jeanine and Natalie. "If you have problems, discuss it like _civilized_ people, why don't you?" Both combatants turned and stared at her. _They won't kill me. They can't. It's illegal. Please, don't let them kill me._

"Get out of the way, stupid Candor!" growled Jeanine. "Do you _want_ to die an early death?"

"I know your faction values justice and due process of the law, but we're really past that point now," said Natalie gently but firmly, drawing a second knife concealed within her pocket. "Please move."

"No, I will not," replied Johanna. "You were about to fight to the death. Violence can and must be stopped wherever and whenever it happens." _Why can't people ever understand that?_

Before Natalie could respond, Jeanine ducked around the Candor and aimed her contraption at the Dauntless girl's head. An ice-blue length of glowing wire shot out of one of the spikes. Instinctively, Natalie raised her knives to shield herself. The wires ricocheted off the metallic surfaces of the blades and rebounded straight at Johanna's right eye.

The world went black as a bolt of unimaginable pain ripped through Johanna's face. "ARGHHHHHHHH!" she shrieked, feeling pulses of searing hot and piercing cold drill through the nerves under her skin. _THE PAIN THE PAIN THE PAIN THE PAIN!_

* * *

**Uh oh, this looks bad! While we wait for the next chapter, why don't we take a look at the…**

**Sheronnale Trivia #4!**

Sadly, Johanna's injury will not be enough to stop the fight. Who will prevail? Legendary fighter Natalie Prior and her swords of doom, or evil genius Jeanine Matthews with her lasers of death?

_**Natalie's advantages:**_

Being Dauntless, she has been battle training since she was born.

Andrew can back her up if things get desperate.

_**Jeanine's advantages:**_

She could outsmart Natalie and lure her into a trap.

Her gadgets are extremely powerful and have a long range.

**Read and review!**


	8. Changing Allies II

**A/N: We are now past the halfway point! Thank you, readers, for your continuing support!**

* * *

_The world went black as a bolt of unimaginable pain ripped through Johanna's face. "ARGHHHHHHHH!" she shrieked, feeling pulses of searing hot and piercing cold drill through the nerves under her skin. THE PAIN THE PAIN THE PAIN THE PAIN!_

_**Andrew**_

Natalie gasped as the Candor girl crumpled to the floor, wailing and clawing at her right eye. "A-Are you okay…?!"

Jeanine took advantage of her opponent's momentary distraction to fire again.

_How depraved __**is**__ she?!_ thought Andrew furiously. "Natalie! Watch out!"

Spasms of flame and electricity shot in all directions. The Dauntless girl screamed when a tongue of flame scorched her leg.

Jeanine smirked. "Strength is no match against intelligence, fool!" she called out over Johanna's continued yells of agony.

Gritting her teeth, Natalie launched herself forward and slashed wildly with her knife, leaving several deep gashes in Jeanine's side. Before her enemy could strike back, Natalie rolled backwards and doused the flame on her shorts. The Erudite groaned in pain and tried to take aim again.

_Between Natalie's combat skills and Jeanine's high-tech weapons, those two are evenly matched,_ Andrew realized as he watched the fight unfold before his petrified gaze. First, Jeanine would go on the offensive, beaming wide swaths of destruction before her with her deadly instrument. Natalie would weave and dodge, her agility making her seem like a blur in the air, searching for holes in her opponent's defenses. The instant she found one, it would be Jeanine's turn to duck as Natalie sprang forward, knives tracing deadly arcs through the air.

_I've got to do something,_ thought Andrew. _I can't let Natalie face that monstrosity alone._ But something prevented him from moving. Perhaps he had spent enough time around both Natalie and Jeanine to know that each could be absolutely lethal when angered. After all, there was the Candor girl still writhing on the ground, showing what could happen to him if he got caught in the crossfire. Whatever the reason, Andrew remained frozen by the trash bins.

After an interminable time, one of the laser guns on Jeanine's contraption suddenly sputtered out. Natalie jumped quickly into the opening and delivered several heavy blows. Unfortunately, Jeanine managed to reactivate her weapon before the black-clothed girl could do any serious damage.

"I'm done playing," said the Erudite sharply. "Time to finish you off."

Jeanine pressed yet another button on her silver contraption. It instantly unleashed a gigantic, mega-powerful beam of sickly green light far into the atmosphere. Natalie dove to the side, but the beam twisted in midair, sparking with a sonic boom before turning downwards to engulf her.

_CRACKLE!_ **BOOM!**

"**AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!**"

"_**NATALIE!**_" Andrew watched in horror as the Dauntless girl collapsed. Unlike the Candor, who had cried pitifully in pain after being hit, the Dauntless girl screeched like a deranged person and clawed madly at the pavement.

For once in his life, Andrew didn't stop to wonder exactly what had just happened. The world pulsated sickeningly between color and blackness before his eyes as all notion of self-preservation vanished. One thought and one thought only dominated Andrew's mind: _**MAKE JEANINE PAY.**_

He waited until the Erudite girl stopped laughing sadistically and staggered from the wounds in her side. _Now!_ With a speed he didn't know he had, Andrew charged.

* * *

_**Natalie**_

"Natalie…"

_Who's calling me? _

"Can you hear me?"

_Why is the world so dark? _

"Please, say something!"

_Where am I?_

Natalie Prior regained consciousness by degrees, slowly edging out of the black void that had so utterly consumed her. Her mind awoke first, followed by the aching all over her body. It felt like hours before she could finally move again.

"Natalie! Oh, thank goodness you're alive!"

She groaned and opened her eyes. She was lying on a bench in a strange part of the city, the evening sunlight reflecting off the many windows to form shifting geodesic shapes on the pavement. Andrew stood beside her, attempting to rouse her.

"Wha…what happened…? Why…?" she mumbled, trying to shake the white static out of her head. "I…thought we were walking to the store…" _Ambushed. Lasers._ Images of the battle flashed before her eyes. Natalie bolted upright, reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. "RUN! SHE'S GOING TO KILL US!"

"It's okay, you're safe now," said Andrew soothingly. "This is the _old_ Erudite sector of the city. Nobody will think to find us here."

Natalie looked at him in confusion. "Hang on, what happened? The last thing I remember was getting shot with that weird light."

With a shaky breath, Andrew answered, "A-after you got hit with that green beam, you collapsed to the ground and started screaming incoherently…"

_Well, that was embarrassing,_ thought Natalie. _I've been trained in combat all my life, and in my first real fight I'm defeated by an Erudite freak?_

"…y-you looked like you'd lost your mind, and Jeanine just stood there, _laughing_…" He paused. "I'd never been so angry in my whole life. I knocked her down and took her laser. I-I…for a moment I thought I could end everything right then and there. I had the silver gun aimed right at Jeanine and everything…"

Natalie winced. "Did you?"

He shook his head. "At the last moment, she said she'd hit you with high-powered zetha rays. An invention of her father's, apparently. The radiation would slowly eat you up from the inside and kill you. Judging by the way you were acting, she wasn't kidding."

_A death ray? Jeanine actually intended to murder us?_ The world seemed to dip and sway. A sudden fear seized her. "A-am I going to die?"

"No, of course not." The Erudite boy looked pale. "I-I forced Jeanine to tell me the cure, but in return she demanded that I not kill her." Andrew stopped to take another deep breath, looking on the verge of hyperventilation. "There was nothing I could do…you were dying right before my eyes, and I figured I could still shoot Jeanine after you were healed…but then the Candor…the Candor girl's screaming had brought the Dauntless police. There-there was no way to explain what had happened. They would've arrested all of us. So we scattered…you were still semi-conscious, so I led you here…and you collapsed..."

Natalie could only imagine the terrors Andrew must've faced in the past few hours. She thought back to the countless times she'd claimed to be "cheating death" by dangling upside down over the rails by the chasm, juggling knives, or going down the zip line without a harness. Now that she had come to the very edge of death itself, life suddenly seemed a whole lot more precious. "I don't know how to thank you. You could've died by trying to save me."

"Jeanine was going to kill me next," Andrew pointed out. "I was saving my own skin as well as yours."

"Thank you all the same." Natalie looked towards the setting sun. "You really think we shouldn't tell the authorities about this?"

"Tell them what?" asked Andrew in a defeated tone. "We can't tell anyone about Convergence, and to others we're just as guilty for fighting as Jeanine."

_Yeah, that's definitely how the Candor judges would rule it,_ reflected Natalie. "So, this means you're definitely leaving Erudite, huh?"

Andrew nodded solemnly. "Staying in Erudite when Jeanine's going to become leader would be suicide." He rubbed his temples. "Ugh…This is horrible. All my life, I assumed I wouldn't transfer. I might not always agree with some of the people in my faction, but I love learning. And now…what on Earth am I going to do?"

_Gosh, what would I do if I had to leave Dauntless?_ Natalie shuddered and pushed the thought away. "Well, obviously you couldn't be Candor. They'd make you tell about all of this. But couldn't you be, like, Amity? They believe in peace, so you'd probably be safe there."

He shook his head. "No. Peace serum is almost as bad as truth serum. Who knows what I'd say if I ever got injected with that stuff?"

"I didn't think of that," Natalie admitted. "Well, up until today I would've said you'd never make it through Dauntless initiation, but considering how you just single-handedly took down a super-genius maniac wielding a laser gun…"

Andrew coughed. "Natalie, don't exaggerate. I had the element of surprise. I could never fight like you did."

"But fighting's not all there is to it," said Natalie with a strange sense of urgency. "Are you afraid of heights, fast speeds, or darkness?" For some reason, she found herself hoping he would say 'no'. _You're being silly, Nat,_ she scolded herself. _That was just a joke. Andrew could never survive in Dauntless._

"I'm not scared of the dark," he answered carefully. "As for heights and speeds, I'm fine with standing near the windows at the top of the Hub, and I think I can tolerate any speed a car can produce."

_Maybe, just maybe, this can work._ "Could you jump off a seven-story building if there was a net at the bottom?"

"Depends on the circumstances. Am I running for my life?"

"Well, no…you're just doing it because the building's there."

Andrew looked at her blankly. "Why would I do that? It would be risking my life for no discernible reason."

Natalie felt her heart sink. _That's Dauntless in a nutshell: risking one's life for the fun of it. Rats._ Trying to hide her disappointment, she said, "Well, maybe not then. I guess you could always go to Abnegation. Nobody fails their initiation, and no sane Erudite ever visits them."

Andrew laughed bitterly. "Abnegation? All my life I've heard nothing but bad things about them, thanks to my faction's prejudice. I never thought I'd one day have to seek them for refuge."

"They're not bad. Just…a little on the lame side sometimes."

"I assume you're staying Dauntless, right?"

Natalie nodded firmly. "Of course. I wouldn't fit in anywhere else." For a moment, she thought she'd caught a fleeting look of disappointment on Andrew's face, but it was gone so quickly she thought she must've imagined it. Natalie cleared her throat and changed the subject. "Say, what happened to that poor Candor?"

"I don't know," Andrew admitted. "She stayed in the alley, so I'm guessing the Dauntless took her to the hospital. Her eye looked pretty bad."

_That was all my fault._ "Oh no. If only we'd just backed down, she wouldn't have been hurt…d'you reckon she's scarred for life?"

"Please, don't think like that," Andrew pleaded. "Jeanine was the one who fired her weapon. You were only trying to defend yourself. Besides, the Candor girl will recover; I don't think Jeanine used the lethal ray on _her_." He stopped and said suddenly, "Even though I don't think that girl remembered much about the fight, will the Dauntless police go take some DNA samples and track us down?"

The idea was so silly Natalie burst out laughing. "_Dauntless? _Taking _DNA samples?_"

He blinked. "What?"

"You really are Erudite, Andrew," she laughed. "The Dauntless don't _investigate_. They look around for people with guns. If they didn't find any, they probably told the doctors at the hospital that the girl was attempting some dangerous dare or something."

"Well, I guess we're safe then," said the Erudite boy in relief. "I just wish Jeanine hadn't escaped…"

Natalie hesitated. Part of her was screaming for revenge against the girl who had just tried to kill her, but another part warned her against it. "No, stabbing Jeanine would make us just as bad as her."

"I guess that's true," Andrew agreed. "But if she's prepared to kill people as a sixteen-year-old, what's the city going to be like when all of Erudite is under her control?"

"Well, they're not stupid," Natalie reasoned. "If the Erudite find out their leader is corrupt, they'll elect a new one."

"Unless Jeanine is so smart she can trick them into complacency," Andrew pointed out.

Natalie could think of no optimistic response to that.

* * *

_**June 3**_

_**Evelyn**_

"I don't know where I should go, Zachary." Evelyn pressed her forehead against the wall of her best friend's flat, listening to her panicked thoughts run and collide with each other in her mind. "I've got less than two weeks to decide, and I have _absolutely no idea_ where to go."

Zachary looked at her in surprise. "You're sixteen? Already?"

She frowned. "Of course. I'm not _that_ much younger than you."

"Well, isn't this kind of a no-brainer?"

Evelyn sighed. _Zachary understands me so well, but there are some faction things he just doesn't understand._ "Candor and Dauntless are out of the question. That's the easy part. And I'm definitely not staying in Erudite, though I do feel bad for abandoning my father. But I can't decide between Amity and Abnegation! There are these two people at school, Marcus and Johanna, who keep giving me different advice. Marcus supports Abnegation. He says they are the only decent people, because they want to help others, and they have all the power, too. Which, by the way, I find kind of strange. The Amity, according to him, are nothing but a bunch of useless hooligans who do nothing but wander around their orchards all day. But Johanna says exactly the opposite. She claims the Amity try to make everyone happy, while Abnegation takes the joy out of everything. I honestly can't tell who's right."

Zachary looked at her for a few seconds. "That was not what I was expecting you to say at all."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, haven't you considered just abandoning the faction system altogether and coming out here?" asked the factionless boy. "You'd have a much better time away from the city. Your father can join us too. He could probably scavenge more as a factionless man than he could earn at that menial job of his."

Evelyn looked at him skeptically. "That's, that's…"

"Crazy?" interjected Zachary. "Illogical? That's what the Erudite _want_ you to think, Evelyn. You've seen what factionless life is really like. You know better."

"But still…" Evelyn struggled with herself. "It just seems…_wrong_."

Zachary raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were different, Evelyn. You said you hated Erudite, even though you were born into it. You once said you'd be willing to be factionless if everyone was kind to you. Well, I can promise you the factionless are a whole lot nicer than the Erudite."

"But…but I want to _belong_ someplace," Evelyn explained desperately. "I don't want to be in the middle of nowhere."

"You wouldn't be in the middle of nowhere," said Zachary softly. "You'd be part of the factionless community. Okay, perhaps your father _is_ a little old to be moving here, but you could certainly make it. With enough support, we might even be able to attack Erudite someday. Wouldn't that be nice?"

_Marcus said something quite like that,_ Evelyn noted. She had gradually come to find the idea oddly appealing. "That's nice, but I'm not sure whether it warrants leaving the factions altogether."

"Please, Evelyn. You're my closest friend. Don't become a mindless slave to one of the factions," entreated Zachary. "Because that's what they are. They act a certain way their whole lives, and everywhere there are restrictions, restrictions, and more restrictions from their stupid faction manifestos."

_That's a little extreme,_ was Evelyn's first response to this. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that he was right. The Erudite around her could see the world only as bits of information, the Dauntless saw objects based on their effectiveness as weapons, and so on. People who differed from the norm were immediately rejected. _People like me._ Evelyn found herself saying, "You're right, Zach. The factionless are the only ones who are truly free."

"So, will you abandon the factions on Choosing Day?" asked Zachary urgently.

Under his intent gaze, she answered without thinking, "Of course I will."

"I knew I could count on you, Evelyn." Zachary smiled and reached for something concealed under a pile of rags. "Look what I found in the dump the other day."

The girl's eyes widened as she saw the statue in his hand. It was made of sparkling blue glass fitted together in the shape of a person. "It's so pretty! Why would anyone throw it out?"

"Judging by the material, it was made by an Erudite. A misfit, probably, who enjoys making art even though it's considered 'illogical'. Most likely, the creator threw this out so his faction wouldn't find it." Zachary pressed the sculpture into Evelyn's hands. "The faction system is deeply flawed. At least a quarter of the people shouldn't fit in any faction. Yet most don't have the courage to leave, to stand out and become who they were meant to be. Instead, they struggle to adopt a mindset that is completely unnatural for them. Don't be one of them. I want you to keep this, Evelyn, as a reminder of the factionless inside of you. Embrace it, as the person who made this sculpture never could."

Evelyn shivered as she accepted the gift. _Do I really have the courage to become factionless?_

* * *

_**June 9**_

_**Johanna**_

"Don't do that!"

Johanna drew back sharply as the yearbook photographer attempted to scoop her brown hair aside. "I like it that way. Please leave it alone."

The man blinked. "But I can only see half your face!"

"Leave my hair alone," Johanna repeated with unusual firmness.

The man shrugged and proceeded to take her picture. Behind her, the kids in line smirked and elbowed each other. She deliberately ignored them.

In the coming years, Johanna knew she would have to get used to people staring at the deformity that was now the right side of her face. According to the doctors, she would never regain full sight in her damaged eye. But she wasn't going to let her hideous scar be photographed. Not for the yearbook. _Never_.

Johanna wondered for the hundredth time how she had gotten that scar. The Dauntless patrol told her they'd found her crying in a deserted alley. She remembered nothing except a blinding bolt of light, like the magnesium lamp now flashing in her face. Either her attacker or intense trauma had wiped the memory from her mind. _What did I do to deserve this?_

* * *

**The next chapter is the Aptitude Test!**

**Trivia #4 Answer:** Well, Jeanine defeated Natalie, but then Andrew defeated _her_, so technically Andrew won the fight.

**Read and review!**


	9. A Test of Character: June 14, 2251

**A/N: Just so you know, because Jeanine invented the simulation serum, I am assuming the Aptitude Test was different when she was young. **

* * *

_**June 14**_

_**The Aptitude Test**_

The one hundred or so sixteen-year-olds sat rigidly at their desks. For the first time since the beginning of preschool, the Amity had no desire to turn around and chat with their friends. The Abnegation didn't glance idly up at the clock, the Erudite desisted from pulling out books to pass the time, the Candor failed to start any arguments, and none of the Dauntless even _thought_ about throwing a single spitball. Every student waited anxiously to find out how the Aptitude Test was to be administered.

At long last, an elderly Erudite woman marched up to the podium at the front of the huge hall. "You are here today to take the Aptitude Test," she began as Abnegation volunteers passed out packets of paper to each child. "This diagnostic will tell you which of the five factions you are most suited for. The results are not binding; you are still free to choose any faction you wish to tomorrow during the Choosing Ceremony. However, it is my duty to remind you that those who go to the faction recommended by their test results have a statistically higher chance of passing initiation. The Aptitude Test consists of 120 multiple-choice questions about your personality which you will have three hours to answer. The letters of each of the responses, A, B, C, D, and E correspond to specific factions. At the end of the test, you will add up the number of responses that fit with each of the five factions. Whichever faction has the highest number is the one you are most suited for.

"If the top scores are within 10 of each other," said the woman, her voice slipping from mechanical to slightly apprehensive, "you are Divergent. This means you are equally suited for those factions. On the other hand, if each of your numbers is below 35, your personality is not congruous to that of Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, or Erudite, so you will most likely become factionless."

A murmur swept through the crowd at these words. _So this is the famed Aptitude Test? It's nothing more than an old-fashioned standardized test!_

"Please begin."

_1. What do you think about the current government?_

_a) It's wonderful._

_b) I don't know much about it._

_c) It is way too lenient towards criminals._

_d) One word: LAME._

_e) The whole system is corrupt and illogical._

_2. What would you do if someone wanted to borrow money from you?_

_a) Lend it to them immediately, no questions asked._

_b) Lend it to them if they're a good friend._

_etc…_

* * *

_**Johanna**_

_Why are these questions so hard to answer? It's like the options are playing tug-of-war inside me._

Johanna agonized over each of the 120 questions in the test booklet. She was sure that answer choices that fit her would jump out immediately, but that rarely happened. At long last, Johanna reached the end and began adding up the numbers. Even now, less than twenty-four hours before she would be deciding the rest of her life, Johanna was still woefully undecided between Amity and Candor. All the time she had spent marketing Amity to Marcus and Evelyn was, in part, an effort to convince herself to leave her home faction.

_What in the world will I do? I guess I'll go wherever this Aptitude Test tells me,_ Johanna decided.

**Abnegation**: 25. **Amity**: 45. **Candor**: 33. **Dauntless**: 13. **Erudite**: 4.

She sighed. Amity was the faction most suited for her, which was encouraging, but Candor wasn't far behind. The gap was just slightly too large to make her Divergent. _I could easily survive in Candor if I willed myself to,_ Johanna realized. _I can't really say that I'm incapable of being honest. Yet I've always been drawn to the peaceful orchards of Amity. Is it worth leaving my family for?_

* * *

_**Marcus**_

Marcus barely bothered to add up his test results. He already knew what they would be. He wished it weren't so, but genetics had long ago sealed his fate.

Sure enough, the numbers confirmed what Marcus's parents had suspected of him ever since Richard died.

**Abnegation**: 36. **Amity**: 22. **Candor**: 0. **Dauntless**: 19. **Erudite**: 43.

He was an Abnegation-Erudite Divergent. _Darn it all. I'm in danger too._ Warily, Marcus went back and swapped all his Erudite responses for Abnegation ones. _They are NOT going to catch me like they caught my brother._

* * *

_**Evelyn**_

Evelyn worked her way slowly through the test, feeling her headache worsen with each question. None of the responses seemed to fit her, and even when she tried to choose the one that sounded best, the penciled circles on her answer sheet still fluctuated wildly between the five letter choices. By the time she was through, Evelyn felt like beating her head on the table in frustration. Who knew a simple Aptitude Test could be so trying?

**Abnegation**: 32. **Amity**: 26. **Candor**: 23. **Dauntless**: 22. **Erudite**: 17.

Evelyn stared down at the numbers, not knowing what to think. Not one of the factions stood out—all the numbers were below 35. She wasn't Erudite, Amity, or Abnegation, nor was she even Divergent. She was simply factionless.

_That explains a lot,_ thought Evelyn bitterly. _I really don't belong anywhere, just like the other kids said. No wonder everyone ostracizes me. I am destined to end up digging through the dumps. Why, oh why does it have to be me?_

Theoretically, the results should've made Evelyn's decision far easier, for neither Abnegation nor Amity was suited for her. In reality, though, it made the choice far harder—to be true to her nature, she needed to abandon the factions. And even the most retarded Dauntless knew that was a bad idea.

* * *

_**Tori**_

Tori whizzed through the test, answering every question by instinct. She had never liked exams, and this one was no exception. Within half an hour, she was done.

_What am I hoping for?_ Tori questioned herself as she added up her responses. _Do I want it to say Dauntless so I have a reasonable excuse to leave here? Or Erudite, because it means I'm not dumb after all?_

When she had finally gotten all the math down, it took Tori a moment to register what the numbers meant.

**Abnegation**: 4. **Amity**: 23. **Candor**: 9. **Dauntless**: 47. **Erudite**: 37.

_What the heck?_ Tori had always known she was neither selfless nor honest, so there was no surprise there. And though she wasn't particularly friendly, she liked to draw, so the Amity score made sense. _But since when did I have so much Erudite in me?_ Tori wondered. She forced herself to check her arithmetic again. The results still stood. Her Dauntless and Erudite scores were exactly 10 points apart. _I am weakly Divergent._

Furiously, Tori went back over her answers and changed all the Erudite responses to Dauntless. _I wasn't born with any Erudite in me,_ she thought stubbornly. _My mother must've gotten to my mind somehow. I need to get away from her before I'm completely converted!_

* * *

_**Jeanine**_

"What a stupid test," Jeanine muttered to herself as bubbled in her responses. "Half of these questions are about hypothetical situations one could never imagine accurately, and the other half ask about daily habits _nobody _keeps track of!" _How should I know what I'd do if I were attacked by a giant dog, or how many times a day I check my cell phone? And who came up with these idiotically simplistic answer choices?_

_This thing isn't accurate at all!_ she decided. _Somebody seriously needs to invent a more realistic Aptitude Test._

Despite this, Jeanine answered as honestly as she could, curious to see just how purely Erudite her parents had made her. The results were stunning:

**Abnegation**: 0. **Amity**: 0. **Candor**: 0. **Dauntless**: 0. **Erudite**: 120.

_Clearly, my parents knew what they were doing,_ thought the Erudite girl in satisfaction. _I am bound by logic alone and nothing else. Perhaps this test isn't so stupid after all._

* * *

_**Andrew**_

The Aptitude Test greatly intrigued Andrew. He could tell immediately which responses corresponded to which factions, and because of this he gained much insight from reading through them. _I didn't know the Abnegation would die to save total strangers, or that the Candor mustn't lie even if telling the truth will get them killed. That sounds a little extreme._ He hoped he wasn't as Erudite as he'd always assumed, so that the transfer process wouldn't be quite so painful.

Subconsciously, Andrew found himself hoping for a Dauntless aptitude. _That's stupid,_ he reprimanded himself. _Just because you have a friend who's going there doesn't mean you're suited to that place._ Above all, however, Andrew feared that he would turn out to be Divergent. _Would my parents murder their own son for being Divergent?_ He shuddered. A few months ago, Andrew would've dismissed the thought as preposterous. Now, though, he wasn't quite so sure. With a pounding heart, he began adding up the results…

**Abnegation**: 26. **Amity**: 15. **Candor**: 11. **Dauntless**: 13. **Erudite**: 55.

He felt his heart sink. _Well, out goes the idea of transferring to Dauntless with Natalie. At least I'm not Divergent, thank goodness. _

His initial relief, however, was quickly replaced by worry. _According to the scores, I'm supposed to stay in Erudite, not go to Abnegation! I wouldn't be very happy there if I only scored in the mid-twenties!_

_But you can do more good in Abnegation than you can here,_ another voice in Andrew's head reminded him. _After all, you've learned all you can from the Erudite databases; there isn't much more to know. On the other hand, if you become a councilmember, you could keep Erudite's power in check and help the city embrace the Prior files when it's finally time._

* * *

_**Natalie**_

Natalie worked through the questionnaire carefully, feeling a strange sense of conflict in her as she answered the questions. She had expected the Dauntless answers to jump out at her, but she often found them strangely disturbing. One question in particular bothered her:

_If a starving factionless child tried to steal your food, what would you do?_

_a) Give your food to the child and take him to the nearest factionless help center._

_b) Give the child a bit of your food and try to find out why he hasn't been able to find food for so long._

_c) Hold your food out of reach and reprimand him harshly._

_d) Punch the child and threaten to stab him if he tries to mug you again._

_e) Run away and call the police._

Clearly, the Dauntless response was meant to be D. All Dauntless carried weapons exclusively to deal with the factionless, and Natalie was no exception. However, the fourth response was simply far too cruel. Had the word "child" been replaced with "huge, angry-looking man" it would be a different story, but as it was, Natalie couldn't imagine ever pointing a knife at a small child. After much agonizing, she chose A…

Two hours later, Natalie stared down at the results of her Aptitude Test. "No, no, no…" she whispered in horror, feeling prickles of cold sweat running down her back. "I can't be…"

But the numbers stared back at her, cold, hard, unchanging. Though Natalie had never been any good at schoolwork, she knew she had made no mistake in her addition this time.

**Abnegation**: 48. **Amity**: 10. **Candor**: 4. **Dauntless**: 51. **Erudite**: 7.

Natalie Prior was Divergent. Looking back, she knew she should've seen this coming. What had Andrew told her all those months ago? _Our generation has been marked as 'Generation 1,' because we are supposed to be the first generation to have a significant proportion of Divergent._

Natalie was the descendant of Edith Prior, a woman chosen to live in the factions for her flexible mind. She had inherited a key that was somehow tied to the Divergent emerging. _Of course I'm Divergent. It's in my genes._

Natalie immediately remembered the danger this put her in. Unlike the other children sitting around her, she knew perfectly well that Divergence meant more than just being able to live in different factions. It was the ability to think outside the box, to resist being controlled. If people such as Jeanine were prepared to murder her for just _knowing_ about this, what would happen to her if they found out she _was_ one? Quickly, Natalie went back over her test and began erasing all the Abnegation responses.

* * *

_**Afterwards**_

_**Evelyn**_

"So, Evelyn, what were your test results?" Viktor Johnson asked his daughter gruffly as he struggled to open a can of soup. "And I don't want to hear any nonsense about it being a secret."

Evelyn gazed at the orange sunset slanting into the kitchen. _My poor father. I really need to get out of Erudite, but how will he manage without me? He's depressed enough as it is._ "I'm not Erudite, Dad," she admitted softly. "I'm sorry."

Mr. Johnson put down the can opener. "You have nothing to apologize for," he said distantly. "I knew a long time ago you weren't meant to be here. You're…you're just like I was. Not stupid, but hopeless with books."

_Something's different about him,_ thought Evelyn as she studied her father's face. It took her a moment to realize that the ever-present stench of alcohol about him was absent tonight. _Now's as good a time to tell the truth as any. _"Well, the test said, um, I'm probably going to become factionless. Z-Zachary suggested I might as well defect now and join him out there, and to take you with us if you want to come. He figures I'll get kicked out if I choose a faction, anyways." She waited for his response.

"No, Evie, you must never do that." The heavy sadness on Mr. Johnson's face made his statement seem more like a plea than a command. "Don't do that to your poor mother."

The girl's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

Mr. Johnson started to answer, but apparently thought better of it. "Never mind."

"_What was that about Mom?_" Evelyn persisted.

"It's a long, sad story…" Viktor sighed, sank onto the couch, and put his forehead in his hands. "There…there's some historyI've been keeping from you, Evelyn. I thought you were better off not knowing, but now, it hardly matters…I was born Abnegation. My mother's job was to distribute supplies to the factionless children, and I'd often go with her on these trips. One of the children I met was your mother, Crystal."

Evelyn felt like she'd just been punched in the face. "You told me you were both Erudite."

"Please, dearie, just hear me out. You can be mad all you want later." Viktor wiped the corners of his eyes. "C-Crystal and I became friends immediately. I pitied her sad condition, and we spent hours trying to figure out ways of getting her into Abnegation. How futile it all was. The year I was sixteen, the Abnegation gave blood tests to all the factionless, saying they were looking for some kind of 'genetic anomaly.' Don't ask me about it. All I know is that it showed Crystal had some kind of slow-acting but fatal disease. She had always been thin and frail, but suddenly she had less than ten years to live." Viktor stopped and sobbed into his hands. "I-I transferred to Erudite, th-th-thinking I could find a cure to save her. Stupid me. I never even made it through initiation. Th-they gave me a choice: to stay and cle-clean up laboratories for the rest of my life, or become factionless. I w-would have gladly left, but I-I needed money to buy medicine for C-Cr-Crystal, so I was f-forced to stay h-here, d-d-doing all-all of the dirty work while the Erudite j-je-je-jeered at me…"

At long last, Evelyn understood the reason for her father's chronic depression. _So what if you have to work as a janitor? _she had thought for so many years. _You don't have to drink all day long and yell about how worthless you are._ Now, she saw that his feelings of failure were valid.

"Y-your mother had you when she was t-twenty four. Sh-she was f-f-fading fast by then, a-and she t-t-told me t-to keep my j-job no matter what, to make sure you had a better l-life than she did. You were only a year old when sh-sh-she d-died…"

Evelyn watched her father cry with increasing apprehension. Her resolve to abandon the factions, shaky to begin with, almost completely dissolved in light of this new information. "Dad, why did you keep this from me all these years?" She wasn't particularly angry, exactly, just baffled. _Why did he have to lie and say mother got hit by a bus?_

Mr. Johnson took a few deep breaths and composed himself somewhat. "I wanted you t-to fit into the faction system as much as possible, hoping you could belong to them in a way n-neither your mother nor I ever could. I thought that knowing you had factionless blood would encourage you to turn factionless, when it was the last thing your mother wanted. Now I see it wouldn't have made a difference. I'm so sorry."

"That's alright," said Evelyn half-truthfully, bending down to give her father a comforting hug. "But the thing is, Zachary's told me all sorts of things about factionless life, and apparently the bad stuff the factions say about them is mostly propaganda. Is that true?"

"Living as a factionless person is the worst fate imaginable," said Viktor vehemently. "It is to be without identity or society, helpless, alone, forever looked down upon and despised. Your mother died because of this. Don't make the same mistake."

_That's only true because the factionless are scattered around the city,_ Evelyn reflected._ If they were gathered together, I bet there are enough of them to form a decent community…_ Looking at her distraught father, however, she knew there was no reasoning with him. Instead, she asked, "Then should I go to Abnegation or Amity? I scored higher in Abnegation, but I don't know if it's the place for me."

Mr. Johnson stroked his daughter's hair. "I don't know, Evelyn. Abnegation for me always seemed so dull and lifeless. If you go to Amity, however, I'm not sure if you could deal with the endless chatter. I suppose you'll just have to ask yourself which you can endure longer. Either way, I'll still love you."

Evelyn sighed. _Great. You just made the situation a whole lot more complicated._

* * *

_**Tori**_

"…and you'll have to be sure to be sure to select a good research topic for initiation. Your future job depends a lot on this, you know."

Tori rolled her eyes as her mother prattled on and on about Erudite initiation. "Mom!" she interrupted. "I'm not staying in Erudite, no matter how much you want me to! It's so _boring_ here! Dauntless is the life for me!"

"Hear, hear!" laughed George, pumping his fist in the air.

Mrs. Wu glared daggers at her eldest child. "_Tori Wu!_ Stop this nonsense at once! The Erudite are the only ones with any future! They have all the knowledge and the technology. What do the Dauntless have? Knives and guns. All they do is fight, even if there's no war. No child of mine is going there!"

Knowing Mrs. Wu would lose all sanity if she kept pressing the point, Tori decided to drop the subject. Instead, she exchanged goofy grins with her brother as their mother resumed ranting about the wonderful jobs her daughter could choose after Erudite initiation was over. _I know she means well,_ thought Tori wearily, _but Mother doesn't understand me at all. _By and by, Naomi drifted upstairs to take a nap, leaving the siblings in peace.

"I can't wait to be out of here," groaned Tori. "Mom's driving me crazy."

"She'll be really angry if you go," George remarked.

"So?" she snorted. "I mean, of course I feel bad for leaving and all, but I can't be stuck in Erudite for the rest of my life!"

"But the thing is," began George, "what if Mom takes the anger out on me? With Dad dead and you in Dauntless, I'll be all alone."

_Uh oh. I totally forgot about that._ "Um…well, Mom's not a _bad_ person, just a tad…temperamental. So avoid her when her migraines get too bad, and you should be fine. I'll come visit you as often as I can, 'kay?" Her brother didn't look the least bit reassured. Tori racked her brain for something comforting to say. "Look, Georgie, you want to follow me to Dauntless eventually, right? Think of this as a test of courage, to see how well you can resist Mom's _evil brainwashing!_" She said the last two words in a mock-scary voice.

George laughed half-heartedly. "I suppose so…"

* * *

_**Andrew**_

Perrier Carr lay sound asleep on the bed. _Out of everyone in my faction, he's the only person I'll actually miss, _Andrew realizedas he watched him from his desk. _It's the books and technology of Erudite I like, not the people._

What lay in store for Perrier in the coming years? Tomorrow, when Andrew abandoned Erudite, his parents were sure to be extremely upset. _Knowing them, they'll do everything in their power to prevent their remaining son from doing the same thing._

As usual, the five-year chasm that separated the two brothers made things more complicated than they should've been. Not only did this give Leon and Iris plenty of time to brainwash Perrier, it also meant that nothing Andrew said to him now would make much sense. _He's bright for his age, but he's still only eleven. And no eleven-year-old in the world is going to believe that his parents are killers or that a random Erudite girl is going to destroy the world._

So there Andrew sat, pounding away on his laptop. At around nine o'clock, he finally finished compiling the 500 kilobyte word document that summarized everything he knew about Operation Convergence and the Prior files, along with his reasons for leaving. Andrew copied the file and sent one to his brother's computer, adding a time lock code to it so that it wouldn't be visible until Perrier turned fifteen. Knowing his parents, Andrew guessed they would cut off all communication between the brothers starting tomorrow, including e-mail. With luck, Perrier would read his hidden message and also escape when the time came. One could only hope.

Andrew saved the original file to his laptop and looked around his room, trying to estimate the number of things he could safely smuggle to Abnegation. Despite everything he had been telling himself for the past month, Andrew knew he would sorely miss all of the high-tech Erudite gadgets. _I guess I could still sneak off to the public library sometimes…_

Andrew's train of thought was interrupted by the ring of his cell phone. Looking on the display, he saw that it was Natalie Prior. _Why is she calling at this hour?_ "Hello?"

"Andrew. Please, I need your advice." Natalie sounded like she'd been crying.

"What's wrong?" Andrew gasped.

There was a slight pause. "Is—Is the line bugged? Nobody must hear this."

Slightly panicked now, Andrew answered, "No, this is a private line. My parents are out somewhere, and my phone has the latest anti-detection software."

"Okay, then. The Aptitude Test today…I'm Divergent. Between Dauntless and Abnegation."

He almost dropped the phone in shack. _Natalie, a Divergent? But she's so…so…normal._ "You didn't _leave_ your answers like that, did you?" He waited on tenterhooks as the other end of the line went silent. _My parents found so many Divergent through the Aptitude Test. Please, don't let Natalie be the next one._

"No, of course not," said the Dauntless girl quickly. "That's not the problem. My…m-my parents said I've got to leave Dauntless tomorrow. They said it's too dangerous for me to stay."

Andrew winced. _Did I hear her right?_ "Hang on, what does your being Divergent have to do with anything?"

"According to Mom, Dauntless initiation's full of split-second decisions. The Divergent are such weirdos you can spot them immediately," Natalie explained sadly. "She's got a point, but…what am I going to do? Dauntless is who I am!"

Andrew felt wretched all of a sudden. _Mom and Dad are the reason Natalie's got to flee her home faction,_ he told himself. _They routinely track down innocent people like her and murder them. And there's absolutely nothing I can do about it._ "Well, you should probably listen to her and transfer, then. Listen, I'm so sorry my parents have gotten you into this mess. I've tried reasoning with them so many times, but they just won't listen. I—"

"You've done your part by warning me," Natalie cut in. "Don't get into another fight with these people. They're complete morons. Anyways…I guess I'll probably be joining you in Abnegation. My Aptitude Test says I could fit in there, and I can't go to Amity or Candor for the same reasons as you."

In spite of himself, Andrew found himself smiling. "So, the two fugitives on the run from Erudite decide to camouflage themselves as Stiffs?"

The Dauntless girl laughed. "We probably shouldn't call them that anymore, seeing as we're about to join them."

"Right," Andrew agreed. "It'll be okay, Natalie. I don't want to leave Erudite either. We can help each other through."

"Thanks a million, you just made me feel so much better!" Natalie paused as somebody on her end said something indistinguishable. "Well, I gotta get packing now. I love you!" The line clicked dead.

Andrew sat rooted to the spot in shock. _Perhaps some good will come out of this calamity after all._

* * *

**Next up: the Choosing Ceremony!**

**I'm planning to do a short FAQ section when I finally reach the last chapter. If you have any questions about my story, please start PM'ing me! (You can ask why I made a character say or do this, where I got the idea for that, etc. I'm doing this because it drives me crazy when I can't question real authors about their books.)**

**Read & review!**


	10. The Final Decision: June 15, 2251

**A/N: Based on the PM's I got, I think some of you may have misinterpreted my announcement in the previous chapter. We're getting close to the end, but don't worry, this isn't the final chapter yet! :)**

* * *

_**June 15, 2251**_

_**Johanna**_

Graham Reyes embraced his middle child stiffly. "You were born Candor, and you will always be one," he told her quietly. "Never forget that."

Johanna wriggled out of his grasp, feeling the confusion mount within her. "But I—"

"Let's not give her a hard time," Mrs. Reyes chided from behind. "After all, it's her life."

"She ca—" Mr. Reyes opened his mouth to argue, but his wife dragged him away to find seats.

Yvonne squeezed her older sister as hard as she could. "Please don't leave like Freddie did," she begged, tears welling in her eyes. "Then I'll be the only one left!"

Johanna groaned. "I don't know what to do, Vonnie! I don't like being Candor…"

"But how can you even think about leaving Mom and Dad?" asked the young girl, her eyes wide.

Her older sister patted her head one last time. "It's really hard to explain. You'll understand when the time comes."

Johanna watched with a sinking feeling as her sister walked over to sit with their parents. _What should I do? The Amity have such wonderful lives, but I value justice too…_

* * *

_**Andrew**_

_Well, this is amusing._ Despite the solemnity of the occasion and the knowledge of what he was about to do, Andrew couldn't help but notice how out of place his parents looked among the other initiates-to-be and their families.

"Ugh," Iris groaned as the crowd buffeted her back and forth. "I don't remember this hall being so crowded when I was sixteen."

"The population of the city's risen by 23% in the last thirty years," Leon reminded her.

"True." Mrs. Carr turned to her son. "Now, your choices today carry great consequences not just for yourself, but for the future of the city, Andrew. Remember that."

For the first time in months, Andrew agreed completely with his mother. _They think this is why I must stay in Erudite. But I know now that it is precisely why I need to leave._

"Make us proud," Mr. Carr flashed him a rare smile and clapped him on the back. "See you later."

"Tell me all about initiation at dinner!" Perrier chirped, clearly thrilled to finally be seeing the Choosing Ceremony.

Andrew watched his parents wave hello to Jeanine before braving the sea of people to get back to their seats._ My father and mother haven't the faintest clue I'm about to betray them. They think my choice was set the minute they told me about Operation Convergence. But I am the unforeseen variable that will , with luck, destroy that plan. _

* * *

_**Evelyn**_

Evelyn closed her eyes as her father wrapped her in his arms, trying to remember as much of him as she could.

"Good luck, my dear," Viktor whispered to his daughter. "Go someplace where you'll be happy."

"Goodbye," she mumbled shakily.

Mr. Johnson smiled at her reassuringly and said, "I'll come visit you when I can."

Evelyn watched her father walk away through a haze of unshed tears. _What a strange position I'm in,_ she mused. _I know I'm going to leave my faction, but I don't know where._ She thought of Zachary, how he'd asked her to reject all the factions and join him in the run-down suburbs. Did she have the courage to do that in front of all these people? Next, she thought of Marcus, how he made Abnegation sound like such a wonderful place. _Everybody helps each other, and nobody is ever mean,_ he'd said. More than anything, Evelyn longed to live in a place where everybody could be accepting of her. _But am I selfless enough?_ Last, she remembered Johanna, and the brilliant picture of life in Amity she had painted with her words. _That could be my life too, singing and picking apples in the orchards. But could I always be so happy?_

* * *

_**Tori**_

"Let's get this over with quickly so you can start dinner, alright?" Naomi Wu put her hands on her daughter's shoulders, looking sternly into her eyes.

_Stupid mother,_ thought Tori, feeling the heat of rebellion rising within her. _Stubborn to the end. She just won't accept that I'm leaving._

"Alright, Mom," she muttered, deciding to humor her just this once. In five minutes, it wouldn't matter anymore. Tori would be free at last. Free to pursue the life of danger and thrill she had been longing since before she could walk. "I'll try not to trip on the way to the choosing bowls."

George stepped forward and whispered in her ear, "You'll go through with it, right?"

"Of course," said Tori, a glint in her eye. "I'll wait for you there, I promise."

"Okay."

* * *

_**Natalie**_

_I can't believe I'm leaving them,_ lamented Natalie as Mr. and Mrs. Prior took turns hugging her. Through the years, she had imagined her Choosing Day so many times, always as the joyous day in which she would be able to become a true member of Dauntless at last. Now, she felt a hollow, aching pain that blocked out all other sensations.

"Be safe, sweetie," Ruth murmured, stroking Natalie's cheek. "Don't do anything suspicious."

_I don't want to go to Abnegation!_ Natalie wanted to shout. _Why do I have to leave just because of some stupid personality test?!_

Instead, she simply took a deep breath and nodded. "I won't, Mom."

"No matter what your aptitude is or where you go," her father told her, "to us you will always be a true Dauntless."

Natalie gave her parents a watery smile. _They_ knew she was Dauntless at heart, but to the rest of the faction, especially her friends, she would forever be remembered as a coward. Her only consolation was that at least she would have Andrew for companionship.

* * *

_**Marcus**_

Unlike the many other parents having a last word with their soon-to-be-initiate children, Dexter and Zoe Eaton showed hardly any emotion as they stood before their youngest son.

"You know what to do," said Mr. Eaton, fixing Marcus with his steely blue eyes.

"Don't disappoint us," Mrs. Eaton added. The three people stood still for a moment, looking at each other. No words were required; years of torment had had made it painfully clear precisely what the Eatons expected of their son.

In truth, Marcus had long ago given up the notion of transferring somewhere else; his father's near-constant physical abuse and ranting had burned into him a deep hatred of the other factions. _Besides, it's not like I have to keep living with my father if I stay Abnegation,_ Marcus reflected. _After initiation, I'll get my own house._

* * *

"Greetings, everyone. I am Jerry Lloyd of Amity, and I will be hosting the Choosing Ceremony today. Welcome."

The babble in the auditorium died down as a middle-aged man in a yellow shirt walked up to the podium.

"Here the class of 2251 stands, about to enter a new stage of life," he announced. "It seems like just yesterday that they were young, lively toddlers going to the Lower levels building for the first time. Yet these individuals are now sixteen, and it is time for them to decide what role they want to play in life.

"Generations ago, the world was torn apart by violence. The founders created this city to save the last of the human race. Those who dedicated themselves to serving others formed Abnegation. They lead the city and help the poor. Those who wanted peace became Amity. They provide us with sustenance. Those who valued honesty founded Candor. They are responsible for upholding the legal system within our community. Those who appreciated bravery created Dauntless. They guard our streets and keep them safe. And those who strove for attainment of knowledge above all else became the Erudite. They make technological progress possible. Each faction, working to perfect the virtues after which it was named, has contributed to the great peace of the past centuries. Today, these young people will be choosing one of the five factions to become a permanent member of. Let us welcome our initiates-to-be!"

A smattering of applause echoed around the circular room. Jerry cleared his throat, gingerly picked up the ceremonial knife, and began to call out the names…

* * *

"Tori Wu!"

The dark-haired girl strode quickly and purposefully forward, took the knife from the Amity man, swiped it across her palm. Before she made her choice, she paused a moment to look towards the back of the auditorium. For sixteen years, Tori had been a minor, a dependent, a not-quite autonomous human, but longing to be one. Now, she looked to her family as a child for the last time. Her mother, amazingly, seemed almost sleepy, while her brother gave her a thumbs-up. Tori pulled her hand over the lit coals, watching in satisfaction as her mother's face turned white as a sheet. George smiled.

_That's right, Mom,_ she wanted to announce. _I'm not Erudite, never was, and there's nothing you can do about it. And I'm certainly not coming home to cook pasta._

* * *

"Johanna Reyes!"

Johanna felt a jolt as the man called out her name. Somehow, she drifted forward from the arc of teenagers, cringing as hundreds of pairs of eyes swiveled to focus on her.

_How am I going to choose?_ she wondered in panic. _Is faction before blood really right?_ Johanna cast a glance at her stern-faced father, her anxious-looking mother, and Yvonne, who studied her with a curious expression. They sat amidst a checkerboard of solemn visages and furrowed brows. _The Candor value justice and truth in everything, which I believe in. But they are also far too harsh._

She then looked over at the brightly-dressed Amity sitting just to the left of the Candor. Though they had, for once, quieted down, they still wore sunny smiles and postures that suggested absolute ease. From one of the front rows, Frederick winked at her. _The Amity have the right spirit of kindness within them,_ she thought. _But is peace really the most important thing in the world?_

As Johanna accepted the ceremonial blade with numb fingers, she realized that her indecision wasn't entirely due to fear of leaving her family. According to the Aptitude Test, part of her believed in the values of Candor as well as Amity. She stood at the center of the concentric circles, eyes flicking from the dark earth to the clear glass. _I CAN'T DECIDE!_ she wanted to scream.

As the seconds slipped by and the crowd muttered under their breaths, Johanna simply stood there, trembling. Somewhere inside the fog of panic in her mind, she wondered vaguely if there had ever been a child who just could not choose. Were they simply tossed back to their home factions, or the one the Aptitude Test said they were suited for? Or did they become factionless? Somehow, Johanna did not want to be the one to find out for herself.

At last, something in the smile of encouragement the Amity man was giving her sparked her resolve. Gritting her teeth, Johanna sliced through the skin on the palm of her hand and flung the ruby drops over the bowl of soil. _Don't look at your family. That will only make it harder,_ she commanded herself as she walked over to join the Amity. _You've made your choice now and there is no turning back._

* * *

"Natalie Prior!"

The words were barely out of the host's mouth before Natalie had stepped out of the circle. _The faster I do this, the faster I can be done with it,_ she thought, taking the cold steel blade in her hand. _I know what I need to do. There's really no reason for me to hesitate._ Still, as she turned to face the bowl of gray stones, her eyes still flickered briefly towards the basin of lit coals beside it. _Choosing Abnegation has got to be the bravest decision I have ever made,_ she mused. Ever since she could walk, Natalie had been doing daredevil stunts: jumping off roofs, climbing trees, swinging by fraying electric wires from telephone poles. She thought she was brave for never flinching from these dangerous acts. But transferring to another faction would require another kind of courage altogether, the courage to leave her friends, family, and everything she had ever known behind to start over in a completely unfamiliar place.

Closing her eyes, she pulled the knife across her hand and shoved it blindly forward over the gray stones. _I would give anything to be able to stay in Dauntless. But there is no other way._

* * *

"Jeanine Matthews!"

The Erudite girl stepped carefully off the circular step and walked calmly past the other sixteen-year-olds. _I don't understand why the others looked so terrified,_ she thought. To Jeanine, there had never been any doubt as to what faction she would pick when her Choosing Ceremony finally came. _Erudite is the only place for me. My destiny was decided for me long before I was born. _

To her, the other factions seemed hopelessly illogical. _The Dauntless are idiotic adrenaline junkies simply begging for an early death. The Candor think they are looking for truth, but they are really just arguing over subjective opinions. The Amity have some degree of sense when it comes to bioengineering, but at the end of the day they're just happy-go-lucky hippies singing and dancing on a flowery hillside. And the Abnegation, well…_ Jeanine couldn't think of an insult bad enough for the Abnegation. They were the bottom feeders of society, no better than the factionless. It was the rotten Abnegation baby that had killed her parents.

Jeanine pressed the blade into her left hand, making a small incision that immediately began to ooze blood. Wincing in pain, she allowed the scarlet drops to drip into the Erudite bowl, forming strange spiral patterns as it dissolved. _The Erudite are the only people sensible enough to see that knowledge is power,_ Jeanine told herself as she walked over to join the other Erudite initiates. _Unfortunately, they insist on diluting that power by sharing all their discoveries with the entire city. Hopefully, I will be able to make them realize that information must be kept secret._

* * *

"Evelyn Johnson!"

Evelyn didn't react until the person next to her nudged her in the ribs. A black cloud of terror had descended on her mind and blocked all rational thought. She stumbled forward, her legs giving way beneath her like jelly. Despite years of pondering the problem, Evelyn still did not know what to do. _How can I possibly choose a faction when the Aptitude Test itself says that I don't belong in any of them? I'm not even Divergent; I'm simply Factionless!_

Before she knew it, she was standing before the Amity host, who was offering her the cracked wooden handle of the accursed blade. Evelyn had rehearsed the scene all night in her head. After she took the knife, she would cut her hand and allow the blood to spill all over the wooden floor, declaring in a loud voice, "I belong to none of the five factions! I choose to be factionless!" Ignoring the gasps of shock from the audience, she would march straight to the exit at the back of the auditorium and head out to the dilapidated suburbs.

Standing before the five huge bowls in the bright spotlight, however, Evelyn could find no trace of the courage she thought she had. _What's there to be afraid of, you idiot?!_ she scolded herself. _If you choose a faction now, you'll just end up getting kicked out again, anyway._

Yet, somehow, she was unable to bring herself to say the words. All her life, Evelyn had been taught that being factionless was even worse than death. While she had seen otherwise, the ever-present pressure to fit in felt as strong as ever, choking her of her rebellious spirit.

_What should I do?_ Still she hesitated, paralyzed with indecision. _Should I just try my luck somewhere? Maybe I might survive in Amity…but I'm way too gloomy…or Abnegation…_

After what seemed like hours, Evelyn's mind somehow came to a decision. _I'm so sorry, Zachary, please forgive me,_ Evelyn pleaded internally as she watched herself slice the skin of her hand and fling her blood onto the cold gray stones of Abnegation. _I need to feel included somewhere._ Like a zombie, she stalked away from the bowls and joined the small line of teenagers behind the seated Abnegation members. Evelyn looked across the room to the line of sixteen-year-olds still waiting to be called up, catching Marcus's eye. She glared at him, hoping he would get the message: _Abnegation life had better be as good as you told me it was._

* * *

"Marcus Eaton!"

The plain-looking boy stepped stiffly away from the line, marching quickly to the metal wells without the slightest trace of hesitation. By this time, the gathered crowd had watched over seventy kids choose their factions, so few of them paid attention to this gray-clothed, nearly anonymous child as he grasped the heavy metal blade in his right hand and plunged the tip into his other hand.

_That's right, folks, nothing to see here,_ Marcus said in his mind as he calmly held his bleeding left hand above the Abnegation bowl. _I know my duty and I'm not making any crazy switches. _The only person in the room who had any significant reaction to his choice was Johanna, who seemed shocked that he hadn't taken the opportunity to escape his abusive father. _I'm staying in Abnegation because it would be suicide for someone like me to transfer to Erudite. More importantly, while everyone tends to overlook this plain little faction, it is actually where all the power lies, for they control the government. If there is anything my father's whipping has taught me, it is that one must always be in power to avoid being trampled._

* * *

"Andrew Carr!"

For the first and what would probably be the last time in his life, Andrew was glad to have his rather unusual last name. Its proximity to the beginning of the alphabet had allowed him to ensure that both a) Jeanine really did choose to remain in Erudite, eliminating all possibility of him staying, and b) Natalie didn't make a spur-of-the-moment decision to return to Dauntless.

_This makes matters extremely simple, really,_ Andrew told himself as he willed his legs to carry him forward past the few remaining children waiting to be called. _I must go to Abnegation. There is no other choice._

As the teenage boy took the knife, however, he felt sick about what he was about to do. For the rest of his life, Andrew would only be able to sneak glimpses of the computers and books others were enjoying, not being allowed to own any himself. If he asked people questions, they were likely to shrug him off with a "Learning for the sake of satisfying curiosity is self-indulgent." How could he possibly survive Abnegation with his sanity intact?

But then he remembered the horrors of Operation Convergence. His mind was flooded with scenes of death and destruction yet to come, culminating in a certain former acquaintance completely demolishing the city. _Erudite may be a wonderful place now, but it'll soon be a nightmare with that inhuman monster running it. You need to get out of here._

With immense willpower, Andrew made a gash in his hand and stuck it resolutely over the Abnegation bowl. In spite of himself, Andrew scanned the crowd for his family. His father was visibly trembling with rage, fists clenched tightly to his sides, while his mother appeared to be dazed with shock. Sitting between them, Perrier gave him a questioning look.

_Please, Perrier, please do the same when your time comes…_

"You had me worried for a moment there," Natalie whispered to Andrew as he slid into line next to her. "You kept glancing at the Erudite bowl."

Andrew felt his doubts melting away as he looked at her. _I don't care how much I have to lose. It'll all be worth it if we can be together._ "I'd never leave you," he whispered back, taking her hand. "Listen, it'll be hard for both of us, but we'll help each other get through this, okay?"

"Of course." Natalie gave him a watery smile as the Choosing Ceremony ended. Together, they passed through the back doors of the auditorium, toward an uncertain future.

* * *

**Keep sending PMs if you have any questions, and please, please review!**


	11. The Years in Between: 2251-81, Age 16-46

**A/N: This chapter spans the three decades after the Choosing Ceremony. I'll only cover the major turning points, so there will be large time jumps between sections. In order to reduce confusion, the ages of the **_**class of 2251**_** during the specified year, **_**not necessarily the main characters of each section**_**, are in parentheses. For example, the scene with George is labeled "Age 20," meaning that Tori and her peers are twenty years old during that time, not George.**

**By the way, they should really allow longer chapter names. I had quite a bit of trouble naming this one.**

* * *

_**Just After the Choosing Ceremony**_

_**Marcus**_

When the Abnegation initiates arrived at their section of the city, they were given a brief tour of the main buildings and left in a large hall to intermingle. Marcus scanned the group of 16-year-olds, searching for the transfers. _The true Abnegation-born are too brainwashed to be of much use, but perhaps I can get some of the new arrivals to realize just what they can do to the other factions by being in government._ Besides Evelyn, there were only two other transfers. This fact alone didn't surprise Marcus—choosing Abnegation meant depriving oneself of TV and internet, a fate worse than death for most teenagers. What was surprising, however, was the fact that the transfers came from Dauntless…and Erudite.

_That's odd,_ thought Marcus. _No Erudite or Dauntless have transferred to Abnegation in a long time._ He tapped Evelyn on the shoulder and whispered, "Those two over there, what were their names again? Natalia something and Andre Corr?"

"Andrew Carr," Evelyn corrected him. "I didn't catch the girl's name either, but Andrew was in my class."

_They must've had a very good reason for leaving. I wonder what that is?_

Ignoring Evelyn's protests, Marcus made his way over to the Dauntless girl and Erudite boy. "Hello. I'm Marcus. Welcome to Abnegation." He smiled reassuringly, the way his father did at council meetings to win people over.

Both of them eyed him warily. Finally, the Erudite said, "Nice to meet you. I'm Andrew, and this is Natalie." He held out his hand.

"The Abnegation don't shake hands," said Marcus informatively. "We simply incline our heads in greeting."

"_Really?_" asked Natalie. "I never noticed that…"

"There are actually a lot of quirks to Abnegation life. If anything is strange to you, feel free to ask me about it," Marcus offered. _In time, if you prove trustworthy, I might even tell you things about Abnegation that most of its members don't know._

"Thanks," said Andrew cheerfully. At that moment, he spotted Evelyn, who had gradually drifted over to join them. "Hey, Evelyn, you transferred to Abnegation too! Who would've known?"

The girl narrowed her eyes. "Don't make fun of me. You know very well I never belonged in Erudite. In fact, I think _I'm_ the one who's supposed to be asking _you _why _you_ transferred."

_She obviously has some kind of grudge against him,_ Marcus thought. _Still, it won't do to turn potential allies into enemies._ He shot Evelyn a warning look before saying quickly, "What she _meant_ to say was, Abnegation doesn't get many transfers from Dauntless or Erudite, and we're curious as to why you decided to come here."

Andrew frowned. "The Erudite are arrogant, self-righteous gits. Why wouldn't I want to leave? Unfortunately for me, this is probably the only place I can survive."

"Hear, hear!" cheered Natalie.

_Excellent! That makes three Erudite haters in this year alone!_ thought Marcus gleefully. "We Abnegation aren't supposed to insult others," he muttered, "but just between you and me, I think you have a point."

"Why the sudden change in attitude?" Evelyn asked Andrew, sounding more curious than hostile now. "I thought you loved computers and stuff."

The former Erudite hesitated. "Let's just say I finally saw the faction's evil side. You probably knew it all along."

Marcus was relieved that Evelyn seemed satisfied by this answer. Turning to the Dauntless girl, he asked, "So, we know you hate Erudite too, but why did you leave _Dauntless?_"

Natalie looked taken aback by the question. "Oh, um…I-I'm just not brave enough to survive initiation, I guess. I'd rather help than harm…"

_Liar_, Marcus thought, watching her fidget nervously. Johanna had taught him the signs of dishonesty; this girl was hiding something.

"How long are we going to be stuck here?" Evelyn demanded suddenly. She gestured to the Abnegation-born initiates, who had run out of things to talk about and were now staring into space.

"Yeah, shouldn't someone be assigning us dorms or something?" wondered Andrew. "It's almost dinner time."

All three initiates turned to look to Marcus for guidance, which pleased him immensely. _My future anti-Erudite squad, right here, waiting to be trained._ Straightening up, he answered, "Well, this tradition is supposed to be an exercise in patience, you see…"

* * *

_**July 20, 2255 (Age 20)**_

_**George**_

George sat on the floor of the Pit, gazing at the bright moon far above the glass roof. "Ahhhh, it's so peaceful here."

Beside him, his girlfriend Phoebe nodded. "Yeah, this place looks totally different at night. D'you reckon we should go, though? We're not supposed to be out this late."

George shrugged. "These people are Dauntless. Something tells me they don't care about rules too much."

"Mm'kay. Say, what job will you pick when initiation's over? Personally, I'd like to be a leader if I rank high enough."

The boy shuddered. "Not me. I _hate_ admin work. I think I'll fight for entertainment."

"Is that why your sister didn't become a leader?" asked Phoebe. "I heard she came in first in her initiate class, after all."

"Are you kidding me? All those meetings would drive her nuts." George tried to picture Tori in a business suit and burst out laughing. "Her motto's always been 'Punch first, talk later.'"

"She'd be a pretty poor diplomat," the girl agreed. They sat in companionable silence for a while, each imagining his or her future. When the last of the lights lining the cave walls turned off, Phoebe stood up reluctantly. "I really should be going."

George nodded. "'Kay. I'm gonna stay here a while longer." He pecked her playfully on the cheek and watched her turn down the winding tunnels to the initiate dorms. When she was gone, he lay down on the cold stone floor, tracing the patterns of stars with his fingers. _I hope I make it through initiation. It'll be nice to see Tori again after all these years…_

Without warning, a black shape covered the sky and clamped down on his face. Before he could do more than let out a muffled scream, other hands bound his limbs together and began dragging him over the cave floor.

_WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!_ He twisted his head to look up at his captors. Six hooded figures met his gaze.

"LET ME GO!" George yelled, struggling against his bonds. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

In response, one of the figures tied a piece of cloth over his face. Soon, the roar of water became audible.

_Oh, they're going to make me hang over the railing of the Chasm for breaking curfew,_ George thought. But then the hooded menaces hauled him off the ground and pushed him slowly over the railing, not giving him a chance to grab onto anything.

"**MMMMMMMPPPPHHHHHHHH!**" George went into full panic as he realized what was happening. _SOMEBODY HELP ME! PLEASE! THEY'RE GOING TO KILL ME! _

In the end, nothing he did had any effect. The attackers kicked his legs over the railing. He tumbled end over end, into an eternal darkness where the sun never shone.

_Tori, when you find my body…it wasn't suicide. I was murdered and I don't know why._

* * *

SPLASH!

"That ought to do it," said one of the hooded men, squinting into the darkness. "Contact the boss."

One of his companions nodded and dialed a number into his cell phone. "This is Division Epsilon. Subject Wu has been terminated."

Five miles away, Iris and Leon crossed another name off their list. "Good. Eliminate the remaining targets and we will wire the money to you shortly."

* * *

_**October 18, 2263 (Age 28)**_

_**Natalie**_

Natalie stood in the kitchen, watching in mild amusement as Andrew and Marcus typed out line after line of obscure code on their smuggled laptops. Every few seconds, one of them let out either a shout of glee or groan of disappointment.

"NO! The files have been erased!"

"Whew, at least they didn't plant any Trojans."

"Eat firewall, stupid Erudite hackers!"

_They look like little boys playing a video game,_ thought Natalie, stirring the noodles slowly on the stove. _It's hard to believe they're actually defending the fate of the city_. Twice a week, the three of them met at Natalie's house, which had WiFi from the nearby government buildings, in order to check on how the Abnegation database was holding up. A few months ago, Andrew had discovered that the Erudite were attempting to hack into the government files. As he and Marcus were the only computer-savvy people in Abnegation, they had taken it upon themselves to defend the database.

When Natalie finished cooking, she carried the plates over to the table and carefully set them down around the men's computers.

"Come on, you two. Take a break! It's time for lunch."

"In a moment, Nat," mumbled Andrew, his eyes glued to the screen. Marcus didn't even react.

Sighing, Natalie reached out and slammed the lid down on both computers. "Eat already!"

"HEY!" Andrew and Marcus shouted at the same time.

"You two have been on the data network for _five hours!_" Natalie chided them, carrying the laptops out of their reach to the living room. "I doubt the Erudite will be getting through anytime soon."

"But still!" protested Andrew. "You can't just close our computers like that in the middle of a session!"

"You'd better get used to it, dear, because we're getting married in three weeks," laughed Natalie.

"Speaking of which," said Marcus slyly, "whose last name are you going to use? Or are you going to create a new one? And who's moving in with whom?"

They all smiled. It was a long-standing faction joke that the Abnegation only ever argued just before they got married, over precisely those two issues. Oftentimes, the degree to which both parties would insist on letting the other person keep his or her last name and house was simply hilarious. _Not in our case though._

"We're using Natalie's surname. She is the last descendant of Edith Prior, and I want to get rid of my last name," stated Andrew firmly. "The Carrs are evil Erudite who kill innocent Divergent. I left them long ago and it's time I abandoned the name."

They were silent for a moment, pondering his solemn words. _How terrible it must be to come from such a rotten family,_ thought Natalie. To lighten the mood, she added, "And he's moving here for the WiFi."

"Lucky you!" cried Marcus. "Both Evelyn and I got assigned to houses near the factionless sector, so I really had nothing to choose between."

"How is Mrs. Eaton, anyway?" Natalie inquired curiously. For some reason, Evelyn had effectively vanished from sight after she got married. _Was it just my imagination, or did Marcus just grimace when I mentioned his wife?_

"Lying on the couch, complaining about how the baby kicking her won't let her sleep or something," said Marcus dismissively. "I don't even want to _think_ about what will happen after it's actually born."

Natalie exchanged a glance with Andrew. _Isn't he excited at all that he's going to be a father?_

Her fiancé shrugged and gave her a look: _Marcus has his ways. Don't pester him further._

Natalie nodded slightly and quickly changed the subject. "Do you two know the reason Erudite is hacking us _now?_ I mean, those files have been there since the start of the Faction Experiment! Why the sudden interest?"

"They finally figured out there was important stuff here?" Marcus speculated.

"No," said Andrew heavily, twining noodles slowly around his fork. "The attacks started a week after Jeanine became leader. I'll bet one of her first acts in office was to assemble an army of hackers to comb through all the other factions' data."

"Sounds like the sort of thing she would do." Natalie felt hatred boil inside her at the mention of her old adversary.

"Is this the same scum who tried to kill you all those years ago?" asked Marcus.

Andrew nodded. "I was hoping she'd be dead by now. Goodness knows what she'll do now that she's in office."

"That's why we should try to get on the council," replied Marcus simply. "We could shore up security during work, when we have WiFi, and keep that evil woman in check at the same time."

"We're both trying, but it's not working," replied Andrew wearily. "The more we want to get elected, the more the Abnegation think we're greedy. Besides, I'm from Erudite, which makes people naturally suspicious."

"Why don't _you_ try for councilmember then, Natalie?" asked Mr. Eaton, finishing his plate and carrying it to the sink.

"I'd rather help the factionless and seek out the Divergent for when, you know, it's time to open the gates," Natalie replied. _Even though Marcus found out all the critical information for himself, it still feels strange to be discussing this stuff out loud._

But Marcus didn't pay attention to her reply, for at that moment, Andrew also finished his meal and retrieved the laptops from the living room. _Okay, back to zombie mode it is._

* * *

_**September 2, 2272 (Age 37)**_

_**Marcus**_

"Can't I leave you two alone for _EIGHT HOURS_ without you getting into some kind of trouble?!" Marcus roared.

Tobias shrank into a corner and curled up. _Coward._ Evelyn, on the other hand, stood her ground. "The Dauntless child attacked him first! So what if Tobias punched him back?"

_How DARE she talk back to me like this?!_ Marcus unfurled his belt and lashed out savagely. "IT DOESN'T MATTER TO THE OTHER PEOPLE AT THE PARK WHO HIT WHO FIRST! ALL THEY WILL REMEMBER IS THAT THE SON OF AN ABNEGATION LEADER ATTACKED SOMEONE!"

"Image, image, image. That's all you care about!" Evelyn spat, blocking her husband's blows with a chair. "You just want a _perfect_ wife and a _perfect_ son to trick the world into thinking what a _perfect_ Abnegation you are. Well guess what? I. REFUSE. TO. PLAY. THAT. ROLE!"

Marcus abandoned his whip and grabbed her by the wrist. "Abnegation is about putting others' needs beyond your own! That is the life you chose when you transferred here!"

Evelyn kicked him hard and twisted out of his grip. "May I remind you," she growled, "that it was _you_ who convinced me to come here in the first place! I should never have trusted you over my Aptitude Test results!"

_She's even stupider than Johanna! _fumed Marcus, his nerves fraying to the breaking point. _What nonsense will she come up with next?_ "You idiot! Where else could you possibly have gone?!"

"Anywhere besides Erudite, really," Evelyn answered bluntly. "I have almost equal aptitude for all five factions."

Marcus froze. _She's got to be joking._ "_WHAT?!_"

"You heard me. I tested factionless."

Marcus felt his world turn upside down. He'd been taught to keep the Divergent at arm's length—they had the potential to save the world, but were highly dangerous to associate with. He'd always assumed Evelyn was Abnegation from the way she never fit in with the Erudite, assumed her genes would be able to dilute his Divergence so he might have normal offspring...but now…

"YOU LIED TO ME!" He lunged forward and struck Evelyn as hard as he could on the side of the head. She crumpled to the floor, yelling in pain.

"Mommy!" Tobias screamed.

Marcus dealt him an equally hard blow, the fire ablaze in his eyes. _Tobias, a mutant that should not exist, a horrible hybrid of Divergent and factionless. What have I done? _The boy broke into grating sobs that only made his father whip him harder.

Evelyn slowly stood up and clenched her fists. "I'm _not_ a liar. You never asked about my Aptitude Test. You couldn't care less."

"What-?" Marcus spluttered, but realized, for once, he was out of excuses.

"I should've listened to Zachary," his wife muttered wistfully to herself. "He was right. No faction can be my home."

"Who is Zachary?!" Marcus demanded furiously.

Evelyn flushed. "A-A childhood acquaintance."

"Don't try to fool me!" spat Marcus. "_Who is he?_" But he didn't need her to answer. He read the truth in her eyes. "_**HOW DARE YOU?! I WILL EXILE YOU, RIGHT AFTER I BREAK EVERY BONE IN YOUR BODY! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !**_"

"YOU BEAT ME ALL DAY AND YOU EXPECT ME TO REMAIN FAITHFUL TO YOU?!" Evelyn screamed defiantly. She leapt aside as Marcus barreled towards her in a blind rage.

"**GET BACK HERE OR YOU'LL WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN!**" Marcus roared.

Evelyn scrambled under the table and sprinted for the front door. "Don't bother. I'm out of here!"

As much as she disgusted him, Marcus still felt horrified by her announcement. _How in the world will I ever explain this? _"Where do you think you're going?!"

"To join Zachary." Evelyn smirked. "I should've done this years ago."

"**YOU'RE NOT GOING **_**ANYWHERE**_** UNTIL I TELL YOU TO!**" Marcus blocked the door and slammed his wife against the wall. He could already picture the headlines in his head: _Abnegation scandal! Councilman's wife has affair and runs away to factionless sector!_ If Evelyn disappeared before he could formally exile her, his reputation would be irrevocably damaged. "You insolent, ungrateful little—"

"Release me _this instant_," Evelyn warned, "or I'll go straight to Candor headquarters and show them my scars. I _don't care_ at this point if the Erudite get a field day out of this."

Marcus stopped. Having his abusive nature revealed to the world was infinitely worse than having people find out about his wife's infidelity. He dropped her roughly and hissed, "Well then, _GET OUT and NEVER COME BACK!_"

"With pleasure." In an instant, she was gone.

_How will cover this up?_ The gears in Marcus's mind whirred to life, churning out a mash of excuses, lies, and tricks. _I'll have to tell everyone that Evelyn died._ As he turned around, he saw his son, who was still whimpering in one corner. _I'll have to beat the Divergence out of this boy like my father did to me_. Marcus retrieved his belt and wound it up. "You've been a bad boy Tobias, so I must punish you. This is for your own good."

_THWACK!_

* * *

_**June 17, 2275 (Age 40)**_

_**Johanna**_

"As you know, I'm turning seventy this year—"

Johanna strained to hear the old man's voice over the cheers of the Amity. _He looks rather sad,_ she observed. _Why?_

"—in light of my ailing health, I feel it's time I passed on my representative duties to someone else. I would like you all to nominate someone to be my successor."

Johanna was surprised. Standing under the large green tree in the middle of the greenhouse, Jerry Lloyd looked as vigorous as he had on the day she took the choosing knife from him. _He just doesn't want to hold onto power too long,_ she realized. _That's typical of the Amity._ An instant later, however, all thoughts of the current leader's health vanished from her mind as nearly everyone in the room shouted out one name:

"Johanna Reyes!"

She looked up in shock. "What?"

"We have a request for Johanna Reyes as leader. Are there any more nominees?" Mr. Lloyd called out. The Amity were silent.

Johanna ducked her head. _I must've heard wrong. Why would they pick a former Candor to represent them?_

"Okay, then, who votes for Johanna?" Everyone in the whole faction raised his or her hand. "Congratulations, Johanna Reyes, you have been elected the new head of Amity!"

_Wait, what just happened?_ Johanna looked around in a daze. Everyone was looking at her expectantly, and she realized they were waiting for her to give some kind of speech. She stumbled up uncertainly to the roots of the great tree as Jerry took a seat. _Am I dreaming? _"Um, first of all, let me say that I am very honored to be chosen to represent my faction, and will do everything in my power for the benefit of us all—"

A loud cheer went up that continued for almost a minute. When the commotion died down, Johanna continued, "—but I am rather curious as to why so many of you nominated me. After all, there are many fine individuals in Amity whom I feel could do far better than I in this position."

"You are trustworthy, Johanna," answered an old woman sitting near the front.

"And you have a clear idea of what's right and wrong," someone else chimed in.

The Amity nodded their heads eagerly. Johanna smiled to herself. _Those are both Candor traits. I thought the Amity hated Candor. Who knew? Perhaps the factions needn't be at odds with each other all the time._ This last thought, however, made Johanna slightly uneasy. Trouble was brewing between Abnegation and Erudite, and as faction representative, she was now more bound to the faction's customs than ever. _If all-out war breaks out, I'll be unable to intervene._

* * *

_**April 15, 2280 (Age 45)**_

_**Evelyn**_

Evelyn stared at the body, too shell-shocked to utter a word. Her mind simply refused to believe that her beloved Zachary was the man lying in a pool of blood before her. _It can't be. He's survived too much to die like this. This is the corpse of some random guy I never knew._

"I'm sorry," Therese murmured. "We were going to swipe some food from the market when we ran into a band of drunk, trigger-happy Dauntless. It was all I could do to get away. But Zach was closer to them, and…"

"Dauntless, huh?" muttered Evelyn darkly. It was funny in a sick way, really, how the factions seemed to be taking turns torturing her. First it had been the smart-mouthed Erudite children, then the smoothly deceptive Marcus with his talk of "the hidden power of Abnegation," and now this. _Is Candor next? Or Amity?_

Mistaking her companion's silence for grief, Therese said, "We could get Cody and the guys to track down those murderers. They may be Dauntless, but we have strength in numbers."

_That won't be enough. That'll never be enough. I'm sick of being pushed around by the factions,_ Evelyn thought, feeling a sudden rage build within her. "I'm going to make them PAY for what they've done to me! EVERY LAST ONE!"

"What are you talking about?" asked Therese curiously.

But Evelyn wasn't listening. She'd made that remark out of anger, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. _The factions need to go. Now. _Pacing by the rusted railroad, pieces of information she'd been unconsciously gathering all her life began falling into place. Things she'd learned while in Erudite. Snatches of conversation she'd heard between her ex-husband and other leaders. Pieces of advice Zachary had given her over the years. _Who can help me accomplish this? The factionless can never take down the city, not in this famished state. I could perhaps trick the Dauntless into fighting for me. Serves them right. But why would they even listen to me, though? It's not as though I have any connections…_

Connections. It was a word Marcus used all too often. And remembering him made Evelyn think of someone she hadn't given a thought to in years. "Therese, are there any techies among us?"

The older factionless woman thought for a minute. "Hmmm….Norman got kicked out of Erudite for stealing classified data, so I reckon he knows his ways around computers."

Evelyn smiled. "Perfect. Tell him I need to send a message to a young man called Tobias in Dauntless."

* * *

_**August 16, 2281 (Age 46)**_

_**Jeanine**_

Jeanine scanned the list of new Erudite initiates, only superficially noting how many had come from each faction. Over the years, these names had ceased to interest her. Over a third of them would be gone by the end of initiation, anyway. Today, though, a name happened to catch her eye: _Caleb Prior, Abnegation transfer_.

The woman stared at the name. _Prior? Is this the accursed Natalie's son?_ She shook herself mentally. _No, it can't be. No child of hers would come to Erudite. _Nevertheless, her curiosity was sparked. She had to be sure. Jeanine picked up the phone on her desk. "Bring up initiate Caleb Prior to my office immediately."

In a few moments, a boy in his mid-teens was escorted into the room by two guards and left there. Jeanine surveyed him critically. His features looked oddly familiar, if somewhat scrambled: black, slightly wavy hair, a hooked nose, and dark green eyes. _This had better not be who I think it is._ "You are Caleb Prior, yes?"

"Yes."

"What are the full names of your parents?"

Caleb hesitated, looking around the sleek office. "A-Andrew and Natalie Prior."

Jeanine grimaced. _How ignorant do they think I am? This boy is obviously on a reconnaissance mission for his father. Did they really think I'd tell their filthy progeny anything worth hearing? I must see to it that he does not pass initia—_

"Please, I'm not associated with them anymore," the boy burst out suddenly. "I don't agree with their government policies at all. That's why I left!"

She looked up sharply. _Well, that certainly changes the variables of the situation. __**If**__ he's telling the truth._ "Do you have any siblings?"

"One. I have a younger sister, Beatrice, who transferred to Dauntless." Caleb looked genuinely frightened now.

_Natalie in miniature,_ thought Jeanine in disgust. "Well, Caleb, because of your origins, you will have to strive harder than the other initiates to prove your loyalty to this faction, do you understand?"

The boy nodded quickly. "Of course."

With his half-curious, half-nervous expression, Caleb looked so disturbingly like his father that Jeanine shuddered. _Wait a second. Andrew._ "Caleb," she said carefully, "how proficient are your computer programming skills?"

His eyes lit up. "Oh, I love working with computers, although I haven't had much time to use them because I grew up in Abnegation."

Intrigued, Jeanine pulled up the portal in the data network that linked to Abnegation's computers, which had the firewall that had stumped her for so many years. _I wonder if he inherited any of his father's talent. _Turning her laptop screen to face Caleb, she commanded him, "I have here a simple model of a data center. In order to assess your computer skills, I would like you to attempt to hack into this system."

He nodded and immediately began to type.

* * *

"Um, I think I've broken into it," Caleb muttered hesitantly after ten minutes of typing.

Jeanine bit back a yelp of surprise. "You _did?!_"

"I hacked into the data center," answered Caleb, wiping his forehead wearily. "That…that was some complex simulation. I actually felt like there was someone on the other end trying to stop me."

The Erudite woman could hardly contain her excitement as she spun her laptop back around and saw that, indeed, the boy had just accomplished in a matter of minutes what scores of Erudite professionals had not been able to do for years: get to the data stored in Abnegation's government computers. _Ha! The joke's on you, Andrew. You are defeated at last, and by your own son!_ "Your performance was outstanding, Caleb."

The boy beamed. "So, that was a test of loyalty as well as skill, right? You wanted to see if I would be willing to attack my own faction?"

"Yes, and you passed." Sitting back in her chair to regard Caleb, Jeanine uttered her first sincere words in years. "I hope you work hard and become a full member of Erudite, Caleb. Talent such as yours is much needed here."

* * *

**Trivia #2 Answer:** So, which children in chapter two got together? It was Evelyn and Zachary! It was because of him that Evelyn decided to organize a factionless mafia.

**Keep PM'ing me if you have any questions! And, of course, read and review!**


	12. The Ritter-Prior Key (Epilogue)

**A/N: This is it! Did Tris and Tobias find the files their father left behind? What happened to Natalie's key? **

* * *

_**October 17, 2282**_

"Hey, what's this?" Tris suddenly felt a piece of wall give under the weight of her fingers. She pressed harder and the plaster cracked, revealing a hidden panel underneath.

"Are you kidding me? A secret hatch?" Tobias squinted critically at the wall.

"Apparently," Tris grunted, throwing her weight against the door of the panel. With a low groan, the slab of metal swung inward, revealing a small locker set into the wall. Inside sat a gleaming silver laptop. "Eureka!"

"Great! There's got to be something useful on there!" cried Tobias excitedly. "Mind if I…?"

Tris blinked. "Sure, you're much better with computers than I am." She lifted the laptop out of the cubbyhole and handed it to Tobias, who immediately set it down on the desk and turned it on. As Tris turned to join him, however, a glimmer of silver caught her eye.

She doubled back and peered into the hole in the wall. A small key was wedged in a far corner, attached to a thin gold chain. Holding it up to the light, she saw that the words "Ritter" and "Prior" were carved into each side. "Tobias! Look at this! What d'you think it is?" She dangled the key in front of him, only to realize that all the color had drained from his face. "Tobias? _Tobias!_"

With great effort, Tobias tore his eyes away from the laptop screen and looked up at her. "Tris, did you have an uncle called Perrier?"

_What?_ Tris was startled by his strange question. "Yeah…I think I only met him once, because he transferred to Amity. He died a few years ago. Why?"

"I think you should take a look at this."

Tris took the laptop and saw that Tobias had pulled up a dense word document. She glanced at his face, wondering what had shocked him so much, but he just nodded towards the screen. Tris took a deep breath and began to read.

* * *

_Dear Perrier,_

_By the time you read this, you will be fifteen years old. Undoubtedly, Mom and Dad will have told you all sorts of slanderous things about me: how I ruined our ancestors' grand plans for saving the city, how I betrayed you all by leaving Erudite, and so on. They are wrong. Operation Convergence is an evil plan, and I have been opposing it with every fiber of my being. What little you have been told about it has been carefully crafted to sound wonderful. Do not be fooled. There is another side to this story, an ugly reality that compelled me to make the choices I did. When you finish reading this letter, I hope you, too, will come to see why you must abandon our parents and their ambitious plans._

_You see, long ago, we all came from outside the city…_

* * *

_The long document had the two teenagers absorbed for more than half an hour. _Within these lines, Tris saw a whole other side to her father._ He was no longer the oddball that struggled to fit into Abnegation. These are the words of a young Erudite who was forced to leave his home faction because he'd discovered a terrible secret. _

"This changes everything," remarked Tobias after they finished reading. "Not only is there a world outside the fence, the Divergent are meant to save it."

"Did Andrew keep it all to himself, or did he tell the other Abnegation about this?" Tris wondered aloud, still reeling from the sheer volume of information that had just been thrust at her. The letter had explained everything from Operation Convergence to Amanda Ritter's message, and she felt completely overwhelmed.

"I think my father knew some of this from his own hacking," Tobias replied, "but I doubt they told anybody else."

"I can't believe my own grandparents were Divergent-killers," Tris groaned, rubbing her face in her hands.

"Don't put it like—" Tobias froze midsentence as a distant scream rent the air, followed by a hail of gunshots. "We need to leave. Now!"

Tris clapped her hands over her mouth. "Tori! The Dauntless! We left them at the mercy of the factionless!"

"Tris! Listen to me!" Tobias turned her around and looked seriously at her. "Tori and the army volunteered to create a diversion so we could come here and get the data. Our first priority now is to get this laptop someplace safe before we rush into battle, understand?"

She tried to protest, but Tobias had a point. _My father risked his life to protect this data. I can't let it fall into the hands of the factionless now._ Reluctantly, she nodded. "Okay, let's get out of here."

Together, they went out of the house and sidled quietly through what was left of the Abnegation sector, wincing as the dins of the distant skirmish floated down on the wind. "Are we going to the Cavern?" Tris asked, referring to one of the Dauntless's secret hideouts.

Tobias nodded stiffly, watching an army of factionless run past the adjacent street. "It has the best security out of all our bases."

Block after block they crept, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. Tobias ran in front, shooting down any factionless they ran into, while Tris followed, clutching the silver laptop to her chest. She had just begun to hope that they might make it when Tobias abruptly stopped in his tracks.

"Back," he hissed, retreating down the wide street.

Craning her neck, Tris could see that scores of factionless were patrolling the entrance to the Cavern. As she watched, another group marched in from the opposite intersection.

"We're trapped," she whispered.

Tobias cursed under his breath and looked up and down the street. Without warning, he dashed towards a silver Erudite car abandoned by the curb. He popped open the hood with his knife and began rewiring the engine.

Tris tossed the laptop into the back seat and scrambled into the car, remembering how Marcus had hotwired an Amity truck. _For once in his life, Marcus actually taught someone something useful._

_Ping!_ A knife materialized out of nowhere and bounced off the windshield. She looked behind her. One of the factionless groups had spotted them. "Come on, hurry!" she urged Tobias as a volley of bullets flew about her.

"These cars aren't like Abnegation or Amity cars at all!" Tobias replied, gritting his teeth as he yanked out a circuit. "They don't even have a proper motor…"

Suddenly, the engine roared to life, making the whole automobile vibrate. "Got it!" cried Tobias triumphantly, slamming the hood down and dropping into the driver's seat. "Now, I wonder how you make this thing go forward…" He randomly pressed a button on the dashboard. The tires squealed and the car shot backwards, bowling over several of their factionless pursuers.

"_DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DRIVE?!_" Tris screamed, holding onto her seat for dear life as the car zigzagged backwards at two hundred miles per hour.

"OF COURSE NOT!" Tobias shouted over the rattle of the engine. "But we don't have a choice!"

"Well, press more buttons and see if anything can slow it down!" Tris yelled as they reversed through the city, the car missing street lights and buildings by inches.

Tobias slammed his fingers over the strange assortment of buttons, dials, and dashboard, but other than turning on the headlights and air conditioning, they did nothing. "It's hotwired, so the controls aren't working properly!"

"FENCE!" Tris cried, pointing to the barbed chain link fence coming rapidly up behind them. Instinctively, both of them dropped down beneath the seats and braced for impact. The car blasted right through and sailed on through the dirt fields beyond. "I think we can stop now!" called Tris as the Amity orchards shot past them.

"I can't do it!" Tobias jabbed furiously at the controls. "It just won't slow down!"

Before long, the Amity orchards had disappeared behind them (or, rather, in _front_ of them) and the land opened up to a vast, scrubby plain dotted with clumps of trees. Yet Tobias still couldn't find a way to stop the car.

At last, Tris yelled, "We'll have to jump!"

Without waiting for a reply, Tris stuck her head out the window and looked squinted at the blurred landscape. They were going far faster than any train she had ever boarded, and in reverse, no less. _This'll be fun._ The Dauntless girl stuffed the laptop down her shirt, which she'd tucked into her pants, and edged out the window. In a blur of colors and howling wind, she launched herself forward and hit the ground with a painful crunch. Moments later, Tobias sprang from the car and came to a similarly ungraceful stop.

"Are you okay?" asked Tobias, examining several cuts on his arms.

Tris nodded. "Just a few scratches." She slid the laptop carefully out of her shirt and checked for any signs of damage. Miraculously, although her tank top had torn in several places, the computer had survived without a single dent.

In the distance, the silver car careened over the horizon and disappeared. "That's one broken car," Tobias remarked, shielding his face from the glow of the setting sun. "When do you think it'll stop?"

"When it reaches whatever's out there?" Tris shrugged.

Tobias seemed pensive. "Perhaps we shouldn't have jumped off. It might've taken us someplace else, away from all the mess in the city."

Tris shuddered. "I think that's an adventure for another day. We should really go back."

"True. Can anybody come fetch us? We've gone pretty far out." Tobias pulled out his cell phone, took one look at the screen, and stuck it back in his pocket again. "Never mind. No reception."

Together, the duo began to trudge back towards the city, following the ruts left in the dirt by the car's tires. They were silent for a long time, each one musing about all he or she had learned that afternoon.

_I see why Mom and Dad kept all these things secret,_ thought Tris. _It would've ruined everything if that traitorous brother of mine had gotten ahold of that information._

As though he'd just read her thoughts, Tobias said suddenly, "You know, I think those files left by your father can explain why Caleb turned out the way he did."

Tris looked up. "What do you mean?"

"Well, think of it this way." Tobias stopped to emphasize his point. "Your mother is descended from Edith Prior. Her whole family's mission has been to create the Divergent and work for the benefit of mankind. Your father, on the other hand, was an exception to a far darker lineage; his parents, along with the Matthews, were seeking to wipe out the Divergent and plunge the world into anarchy. When Natalie and Andrew bore you and your brother, they did not pass on their genes evenly."

"That's no excuse for acting the way he did," spat Tris. "My uncle left Erudite too!"

Tobias regarded her somberly. "I didn't mean—"

"It doesn't matter," Tris interrupted quickly. "The factionless killed Caleb anyway." When a hard pang of grief hit her chest, she scolded herself mentally, _That's right. It doesn't matter. Caleb was a dirty traitor and you're no longer related to him._ Staring at the darkening horizon, she asked aloud, "Speaking of factionless, what is your mother, then? Divergent? Convergent?"

Tobias sighed heavily. "Neither. Evelyn knows nothing and belongs nowhere. She is the rogue factor nobody thought to account for."

_And now, the rogue factor's taking over the city,_ thought Tris dejectedly. "What does this mean for the city, though?" she whispered. "If the city follows neither the plan of the UN nor the ICL?"

"I don't know," Tobias admitted. "And we can't wait to find out the hard way."

As they began walking again, they soon came upon what appeared to be a metal box on a four foot pole by the side of the dirt track. It was covered in weeds and looked as though it hadn't been touched in years.

"Hey, what do you think this is?" Tobias asked, circling around the metal box. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Me neither," Tris agreed. She turned her head and looked down the dirt path. "Would the Amity know? They'd surely see it if they drove a few miles out from their farm."

He shook his head. "No sane Amity would wander out here. They aren't curious by nature, after all."

"Hmm…then who built it?" she wondered.

"It's probably from before the war."

"Should we open it?" Tris wondered, scraping the leaves off the box to see if there were any hidden inscriptions on it. "Oh, it's locked."

Tobias took out his handgun and shot the lock. To their immense surprise, the bullet bounced off the box and didn't even leave a mark. "What the heck? What is this made of?!"

But his companion wasn't listening. By the last rays of the setting sun, Tris had spotted the design pressed into the metal below the lock. It looked like a circular wire mesh with splotches… Instinctively, Tris reached into her pocket and pulled out the key she had found iin her father's room. The design etched onto its silver surface matched the box's perfectly.

Tobias broke off from his ruminations as Tris pushed the key into the lock and turned it. With a faint _click!_ the front swung smoothly open. "Where did you get that?"

"I found it behind the computer," she muttered absently as she peered inside. "Hey, it's a telephone!"

Tobias craned his neck to look inside the box. "What's a phone booth doing all the way out here? And why would your parents have a key to it?"

_And why didn't my father mention it in the document?_ Tris wondered. For the moment, though, she decided to clamp down on her curiosity. They needed to get back to the city, and the fastest way to do that was to contact one of their allies and have them come pick them up. In order to do that, they needed a working phone. And they now had one. Tris picked up the heavy handset, barely registering that it was painted bright red, and searched for the dial pad. Except there wasn't one.

A crackle sounded from the other end of the line. Tris jumped as a male voice, deep and formal, said, "This is the United Nations Headquarters, Faction Experiment Retrieval Division. Chicago, I take it you have reached a critical density of Divergent. Will you be ready in forty hours to join us against the International Convergence Legion?"

Tris was only momentarily shocked. She had seen enough weird things in the past year to believe anything. "No," she answered. "_You've_ got to help _us_."

The man on the other end of the line sighed. "First St. Petersburg, then Rio, now Chicago? The ICL is really getting out of hand!"

Natalie's daughter looked towards the distant orange glow that marked Evelyn's celebratory bonfires. "It's not the ICL. We're about to be overrun by the factionless."

**THE END**

* * *

**The tale of Generation 1 ends here. Three out of the original seven are dead, and the remaining four will soon have to yield control to the next generation of Divergent. Although the ending might seem a bit abrupt for Tris and Tobias, they are Generation 2. If I were to continue, then this story would turn into a sequel, and that is **_**Allegiant's**_** job. **

**However, I understand if you are one of those people who just **_**has**_** to know what happened afterwards. Here is what would take place if the story were to continue: Tris and Tobias find out that the faction experiments around the world have evolved differently. Some were successful and produced thousands of Divergent, who joined the UN. Others were taken over by people like Jeanine, so they all turned into Convergent and sided with the ICL. Tris manages to persuade some of the people in her city to go to the UN side, while most of the surviving Erudite join the ICL. Meanwhile, Evelyn and her minions team up with other rogue forces around the world. There is a final massive battle between the Divergent, Convergent, and Factionless. After several decades, the Divergent finally win. Tris and Tobias, who are in late middle age, help set up a better society for the future.**

**I'd like to take a moment to thank all of my readers for supporting me on this amazing journey of writing. Your reviews really inspired me to keep going, even when I thought I just couldn't get some parts of the plot to fit together. I'd never written anything even close to this length before, and I would've given up long ago without your encouragement. Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to read my story, and I hope to write more fanfics soon. In the meantime, if you enjoy parodies, be sure to check out my **_**Amity vs the Faction Representatives**_**. **

**Survey**

This information might help me figure out what kind of story to write next. Feel free to skip questions or make up other answer choices. :)

**1. What did you think of this story overall?**

**a) The Erudite should be using this as a torture device.**

**b) It was kind of bad…**

**c) Neutral.**

**d) Pretty good.**

**e) Best thing I've ever read!**

**2. Who did you like the most?**

**a) Andrew**

**b) Evelyn**

**c) Jeanine**

**d) Johanna**

**e) Marcus**

**f) Natalie**

**g) Tori**

**h) Other (please specify)**

**3. Who did you hate the most?**

**a) Andrew**

**b) Evelyn**

**c) Jeanine**

**d) Johanna**

**e) Marcus**

**f) Natalie**

**g) Tori**

**h) Other (please specify)**

**4. Which of the following would you most want to read next?**

**a) A more detailed story about one of the Generation 1's (please specify)**

**b) An "alternate history" spinoff to this story**

**c) A prequel (probably concerning Edith Prior)**

**d) A sequel (Divergent vs. Convergent)**

**e) An unrelated parody (like my _Amity vs the Faction Representatives_)**

**f) Other (please describe)**

**5. Which chapter did you like best? Why?**

**(1-12)**

**FAQ**

**What inspired you to write this story?**

Like I mentioned at the beginning of the first chapter, after reading _Divergent_ and _Insurgent_ I got the feeling that there was some history between the adults that Tris didn't know about. Originally I only planned to write about Evelyn, Andrew, Tori, and Jeanine because they were in the same class. As the plot progressed, I added in Natalie and Marcus because they would eventually become the spouses of some of the characters. Finally, I added in Johanna because I wanted to explain how she got that scar. While I'm sure _Allegiant_ will shed some more light on the older generation, I created my own version of events while I waited.

**Why did you use the year 2251?**

The number "2251" itself doesn't have any particular significance to me. Rather, I guessed that _Divergent_ is set between 100 and 500 years in the future based on the clues in the text. It would take more than a century for the buildings of Chicago to crumble to the dilapidated state they are in the novel, not to mention the time it would take for Lake Michigan to turn into a swamp. Thus, _Divergent _can't take place in our century. On the other hand, it probably isn't set more than 1,000 years in the future, either. While the Erudite have stuff like simulation serums that we don't have, they aren't flying around in hovercars or time traveling, etc. Even if the war set civilization back a bit, I don't think it would take more than a couple centuries to get to the level of technology as seen in _Divergent_.

**Were Johanna/Marcus, Natalie/(Ethan or Wilson), or Jeanine/Andrew ever together?**

No. The only real pairings in this story are Natalie/Andrew and Evelyn/Zachary (well, Phoebe/George sort of counts too, I guess). Johanna and Marcus are clearly good friends, but they both seem too reserved and caught up in politics to really click. Natalie was probably too carefree to think about any serious relationship before she became Abnegation; Ethan and Wilson were simply part of her band of Dauntless friends. As for Jeanine and Andrew…ugh. No, just no. Honestly, I have a hard time even imagining them in the same place without trying to strangle each other. (If you ship any of the above couples, please don't take this the wrong way. I'm just trying to explain which pairings in my story are real, which are fake, and why.)

**What was your favorite character to write about?**

I enjoyed writing about Andrew and Johanna the most. They have their own sense of right and wrong that conflicts with the values of both their home factions and their chosen factions. This made it easier for me to relate to them and add depth to their characters.

**What was you least favorite character to write about?**

Definitely Marcus. Out of all the characters in _Divergent_, he is the most unfathomable. What exactly goes on in his head? He seems like such a perfect Abnegation, but yet he's a menace to his wife and son. He claims to be on the good side, but he's also dark and secretive. Marcus pops up at the strangest times and always escapes from battles miraculously unharmed. What made him this way? I reckon he must've had a severely twisted family to begin with.

**What happened to Yvonne?**

She stayed in Candor. I think it would be too sad if the Reyes lost all three of their children.

**Wasn't Natalie supposed to use the key?**

Technically, yes. If everything had gone according to plan, the gates would've been opened when Natalie was about twenty and she would've been the one to call the UN. However, the Matthews and the Carrs messed things up, so Natalie died before she got to use the key.

* * *

**Please review! Even if you are reading this many years from now, I will still look at your comments!**


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